


New Wings for Icarus

by Revenant



Series: Icarus 'Verse [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Courtroom Drama, Drama, M/M, Mild Language, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Slash, Supernatural_and_J2_Big_Bang_2011, Violence, Wincest - Freeform, lawyer!Sam, past abuse of minor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-04
Updated: 2011-07-04
Packaged: 2017-10-21 01:19:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 42,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revenant/pseuds/Revenant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last time Sam saw his brother was back in 2007, they had just killed the demon, their father had just died and they hadn't parted on the best of terms. Four years (and one completed law degree) later, they meet in Minneapolis where Sam is called to defend two clients charged with murder. Two clients that Sam remembers from when he was a kid spending time in Blue Earth; two of his brother's closest friends. The more Sam speaks to his clients, the more he begins to suspect that the motive for the crime lies somewhere in their past; a past they shared with Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

  
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On January 24, 2011, at 8:26 in the evening, two men walked through the doors of O’Malley’s pub; a little place just off of Chicago Avenue in Midtown Minneapolis. They were casually dressed, but respectable. One wore a battered burgundy leather bomber jacket, and the other had on a black double-breasted coat that looked expensive. They walked in-step with each other.

The bartender knew their faces, was setting down a glass of scotch and a bottle of beer in front of each of them as they pulled off their hats and gloves and settled onto their stools. They raised their glasses and shared a toast.

At 9:05, the shorter of the two men rose from his seat and made his way through the far room, to the back where the washrooms were. When he returned, he engaged his companion in a hushed conversation, voices low and heads together, which concluded when both men knocked back their drinks and rose from the bar. They moved to a table tucked away in a corner of the pub, joining a man who had, until that moment, been hunched over a plate of fish and chips, eating with focused gusto but neatly so. He did not show any recognition of the men, seemed confused by their presence though he did not protest it overmuch, even settled back to his meal and into a conversation with them.

At 9:27, both men rose from the table they had joined, each pulling a gun from beneath their jacket and between them, fired seven bullets that, at such close range, could not fail to hit their mark. The third man collapsed over his meal, his blood spilling onto the plate and the table, dripping down his arm and onto the floor. Holstering their weapons, the men covered their tab at the bar, leaving a sizable tip and half-meant apology to the barkeep, and left the way they had come in.

The facts were clear enough, with witnesses left trying to put together the fragments of what they had seen in some way that gave it sense. Two men, two guns, seven bullets, and one victim: simple. The motive, however, was a little more complex.

 

  
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>   
> So it is true that every one of our actions leaves some trace on our past,  
> either dark or bright. So it is true that every step we take is more like a  
> reptile's progress across the sand, leaving a track behind it. And often,  
> alas, the track is the mark of our tears!  
>  ** _The Count of Monte Cristo_ , Alexandre Dumas**  
> 

Sam Winchester pulled his silver Corolla into a space and turned off the ignition, hunching forward to peer out the windshield at the innocuous beige-slate building that sat, oddly majestic, across the street. There was something about the design of it that called to mind the Sphinx, lying aloof and mysterious, or a castle removed somehow from the bustle of everyday life in the middle of which it sat. Even the tiny regimented slits of windows reminded Sam more of a particularly baffling church he visited once when he was younger; he supposed that might have been what the architect intended when he mapped his creation: to make people think of anything but what the building actually was.

Letting out a short whoosh of breath, Sam opened his door and unfolded himself from the car, sparing a moment for a wistful remembrance of worn vinyl and ample legroom, while he pulled his suit jacket from the backseat and quickly pulled on both it and his pea coat; one thing he had not anticipated was the bitter wind that turned his breath white. While the drive from New York to Minneapolis might not have been the longest road trip he had ever undertaken, the difference in weather was both significant and unfortunate.

His back popped as he rolled his shoulders before reaching into the car to grab his briefcase from the front seat, sparing a moment to run a mental checklist and remind himself that he was a professional and also that he hadn’t committed himself to anything. Locking his car, he jogged across the street and began to walk around the block to the entrance, noting with a hint of annoyance that there was covered parking that would have meant less time exposed to the cold wind. He hadn’t been in the city long enough to be confident with finding his way around, though he had looked it up online just to ensure he wouldn’t get hopeless lost.

With another glance at the small rectangle of hotel paper, Sam confirmed the directions as he walked up the steps and through the glass doors. There was always a moment, no matter how often he did it, or how hard he tried to fight it, where his instincts kicked in and screamed at him. He had been taught every trick in the trade specifically so that he would never have to see the inside of a place like the county jail, and yet there he was, willingly walking deeper into the belly of the building. It was just something he’d have to get used to, he thought, though if that were true it likely would have happened already; he’d certainly had enough time.

“Good morning,” he greeted as he stepped up to the front desk, pulling his wallet from his pocket and presenting his identification, glancing at the nametag that the woman behind the desk was wearing. “Claire,” he read, managing a bright, disarming grin. “My name’s Sam Winchester; I’m here for a meeting with my clients.”

Claire’s blonde hair was pulled-back in a slick bun and she peered at him from above the rim of her black-framed glasses, her blue eyes shining. She looked surprisingly cheerful and engaged for someone working the front desk of a county jail, at least from Sam’s experience, and he watched as she checked over his identification carefully. “You’re coming in from New York?” she asked, her eyebrows jerking upward slightly.

“Yeah,” Sam said, squaring his shoulders and preparing to talk his way around any fuss she might try to make. Every so often, or so he had found, there was always a government employee who wanted to kick up an extra bit of fuss, just so they could feel like they were contributing to the system. Sam had learned to accept it, though that didn’t make it any less irksome.

Claire smiled at him warmly. “Well, welcome to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Do you need me to recommend someplace for you to stay?”

Her concern was genuine and Sam experienced a momentary vertigo as his professional aloofness warred with his honest reaction to her open friendliness; she wasn’t even flirting, he saw no hint of interest in her eyes at all. “I’ve found a place, thanks,” he said, which seemed to be the right answer because her smile broadened a little more as she handed back his identification and held out a plastic card with a clip on the top.

“This is your visitor pass; just clip that on and you’re set. You’ll be going to the fourth floor. Have a great day!”

Beyond the front desk was a bank of metal detectors that stood like sentinels, shoulder to shoulder in front of a stretch of glass. There were guards by each detector, their postures relaxed but not slouching, clad in beige uniform shirts and dark pants and chatting amicably with one another. Beyond the glass embankment he could make out a pale hallway and the elevators.

“Good morning!” the guard greeted as Sam reached the metal detector, already pulling the shoulder strap of his briefcase off and setting the bag to be scanned. “Or I guess it would be afternoon,” the guard corrected. “Don’t forget keys, if you keep them in your pocket.”

Sam fished his keys from his pocket and walked through without trouble, accepting his bag and coat from the guard who wished him a good day with enough sincerity that Sam couldn’t help feeling he had walked into an alternate dimension somewhere along the way. He’d had just enough time to check into his hotel room, where the people had been pleasant enough but that wasn’t outside the realm of expectation. A jail, however, usually did not lend itself to social niceties and between the cheerfulness of the people he had encountered, and the pristine state of the building itself, Sam was disinclined to believe he was even in the correct location.

The dark grey doors of the elevators slid open with a chipper chiming and Sam stepped inside. He rode to the fourth floor with a pinched woman who stood with her back pressed to the corner, fiddling compulsively with a gold band around her finger, while the child who was apparently attached to her clutched the hem of her sweater. It was perhaps the only indication, outside the security check they had passed, that Hennepin Public Safety Facility was not a simple office or civic building.

With another bright chime the elevator doors slid aside and revealed a wide hallway with short, cloth-covered benches spaced along a stretch of tall windows. A surprisingly clean and well-kept tri-colored rug covered the floor and Sam adjusted his briefcase as he stepped cautiously into the hall, following the mother and son to the left where a set of glass doors slid open automatically for them. Down a shorter hallway with no windows was a frosted door that Sam held open, trying to smile as the woman glanced up at him, though she was too dazed to return the expression.

It was almost a relief to step beyond the door and see more security, though on the whole, the space looked not unlike the waiting room at a clinic he remembered being taken to as a child. The room was predominantly taupe, and there were cloth-covered chairs pushed against the wall with magazines splayed on a wooden table in the corner. Two heavy metal doors stood on either side of a desk with a glass partition behind which sat a slightly heavyset guard who had a pronounced forehead and no great amount of hair. The guard greeted the woman and directed her through the door on the left before turning to Sam.

“What can I do for you, son?” he asked, his expression open and kindly. Sam gave his name again, shifting to better display his visitor’s badge, and explained he was visiting his clients. “What are their names?” the guard asked, when Sam had answered his other questions satisfactorily.

Sam pulled the paper, on which he had written the directions, from his pocket and flipped it around to read the back, “Aaron Conyers and Jesse Deacon.” The guard entered something into his computer and then gestured for Sam to take a seat. There was enough time for him to remove his coat and pick up a magazine from the pile before a guard stepped out from the door on the right side of the partition and called for him.

“So, New York, huh?” the guard said as he jingled the keys on his hip, leading Sam down a strikingly jaundiced hallway that smelled faintly of bleach. When Sam quirked an eyebrow the man smiled, “Ben mentioned it,” he explained, and Sam assumed Ben must be the name of the guard who had checked him in. “That’s a bit of a ways to come for a client. Are you good friends or something?”

Sam adjusted the strap on his briefcase and said, “Not particularly.” The guard boomed a laugh as if Sam had made a outstanding joke before he stopped by another door, running through a list of rules and procedures that were familiar, and when Sam agreed and assured the man he was clear on everything, the door was unlocked and opened for him. Sam stepped through.

The room was small, though he had been expecting that, and as plain and nondescript as the hallway. There was a faint reek of sweat and something earthy and cold like wet cement. From the inside, the slitted windows were more austere than they had seemed when Sam had surveyed them from the street, but the fluorescent lights were enough to distract from the distinct lack of natural light. In the center of the room, a rectangular table was bolted inconspicuously to the floor. Sitting in matching metallic chairs, their back to the scant natural light, were the two men whose stubborn insistence had prompted Sam to get in his car and drive about twenty hours to come and meet with them.

Their hands and feet were shackled, allowing them some freedom to handle any forms or paperwork that might be required but not so much that they might get ideas. They were in orange jumpsuits and slip-on rubber-soled shoes, but that was the extent of their similarities. The taller of the two, almost but not quiet Sam’s height, sat upright in his chair, his hands splayed flat against the table top in front of him with his fingers periodically tapping out a near silent rhythm. He had black hair that was ruffled and mussed, like he couldn’t be bothered with it, and dark chocolate eyes that wandered every which way but never once connected with Sam’s own.

The other man, though smaller, seemed coiled and ready to spring even as he was slouched back against his chair in a posture that any untrained eye might mistake for relaxed. His hair was long enough that Sam wondered how he survived in the tough crowds that he was apparently associating with, especially given his fair coloring. Neither one of them struck Sam as particularly threatening; they resembled cornered dogs more than anything. Innocent until proven guilty, and if Sam really was going to take the case, like both men clearly wanted, then Sam thought it best to begin optimistically. He stepped forward and dropped his briefcase down beside the available chair, bracing his fingertips against the table, ready to begin the meeting.

“Sammy fucking Winchester,” the blond said, bringing Sam up short.

“Excuse me?”

The man guffawed once, brightly, like it was a joke, and then his expression slid into something more serious. He shook his head. “You don’t remember.” Bumping the dark-haired man beside him with his elbow and nodding back toward Sam he said, “He doesn’t remember.”

Sam frowned, glanced between both men. “Remember what, exactly?”

The blond leaned forward, his forearms on the table as he said, “Blue Earth, Kiddo, we were…”

But it fell into place, the vague memory of two youthful faces superimposed over the world-weary men he was confronted with and he shook his head again, though this time it was with a sense of surprise, and Sam matched the names he had been given to the faces of both men with ease, “…friends of my brother. It’s Jesse. Am I right?”

Jesse’s grin showed teeth slightly yellowed that looked somewhat ghoulish under the fluorescent humming glare. “Yeah.” He waited as Sam greeted the silent dark haired man, receiving only a shy, vague nod for his trouble. “If you didn’t remember us, what the hell did you drive all the way out here for?”

Sam settled into his chair, undoing the button on his jacket as he answered, “Based on the phone calls, it didn’t seem like I had much choice.”

“Oh those, yeah, sorry about that. We’re in a bit of a bind and, well, it’d be nice to have a familiar face backing us up, yeah?”

Sam twisted, pulling a pad and pen from his briefcase to set them on the table as he asked, “So tell me about this bind.”

“Well, Sam Winchester. We’re here because the law thinks we killed a man.” Jesse said it casually but without the humor his tone had sported a moment before. Sam kept his expression neutral as he waited and was entirely aware of both Jesse’s and Aaron’s assessing gazes. “You don’t want to ask us if we did it?”

Sometimes clients wanted reassurance, or something like it, but Sam met Jesse’s piercing blue gaze and took a chance. “Mr. Deacon, if you want to confess, I’d be happy to arrange for a priest; I’m just a lawyer.”

Jesse eyed him a moment longer before he huffed a somewhat bitter laugh and shook his head with amusement. “Can’t believe little Sammy Winchester grew up into this tough-nut, ball-cracking lawyer.”

“Not quite all that,” Sam said, but a part of him preened under the compliment. “So catch me up on this. I understand you both have already entered a plea, which I’m assuming was ‘not guilty.’” He received a snort out of Aaron but continued, “but if I’m going to take this case, I need to have a better sense of where things are at, and what we’re dealing with.” He made sure to cut his eyes to each of them, noting the half-smile twist to Aaron’s lips when Sam said ‘we’ instead of ‘you’.

Jesse described the basics, relying on Aaron for specifics regarding the court, especially the relevant upcoming dates. Sam jotted it all down, and then encouraged them into giving a bit more detail about the circumstances of the crime. “The man … the victim,” Aaron corrected himself. “His name was Edward Dowell.” Aaron paused again, and Sam thought he was being given time to catch up with his note taking, but when he glanced up, both men were watching him with curiously intent gazes. Sam glanced back at the page, running the name through his head, but it didn’t jog any recollection. He nodded and asked Aaron to continue, but the man seemed to deflate again, allowing Jesse to take up the conversation again. Jesse offered a few general details as well as the name of the attorney who had been assisting them up to that point, who was, according to Jesse at least, willing to support Sam in applying to the court to take the case _pro hac vice_ , since Sam wasn’t licensed to practice law in Minneapolis.

It didn’t feel like a question anymore, whether or not he would accept the case. Even after they discussed legal fees, where Sam’s careful hedging was met with amused smiles and an unconcerned wave of a hand, as if money were no object even if Sam couldn’t think how that could be so. Sam felt a pull to defend these men who had, over seventeen years ago, been familiar features in his life, rebuffing his stubborn attempts to go on adventures with them, bringing over candy and popcorn and scary movies that Sam knew he wasn’t supposed to be watching. He pulled his thoughts away from the past as he finished up with the initial consultation, surprised at having covered more than he had initially anticipated.

“You’ve given me a good basis to get started,” Sam said, after checking that they didn’t have any pressing questions or concerns. “I’m just curious. I mean,” his gaze cut to Aaron and then back to Jesse, “you guys would have had to have tracked me down. The messages I got seemed pretty insistent. It sort of makes me wonder, why me?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Aaron muttered before the silence stretched just shy of being awkward.

Jesse rolled his eyes and then leaned forward. “Look,” he said. “I know we were never that close, not like we had much time to hang out or anything, but you’re Dean’s kid brother, and that means something to us.” His gaze drifted away for a moment before he huffed a breath and met Sam’s gaze directly again. “Aaron and I, we’re not good guys, okay? Don’t get any illusions. We have a reputation here, but it sort of felt like maybe we deserved a defense attorney who wasn’t coming in with any sort of bias against us, or whatever. Maybe someone who might understand.”

Sam nodded and tried not to feel like maybe there was a whole other conversation Jesse was trying to have with him that Sam just wasn’t getting. “Okay,” he said instead, and began tidying away the paperwork and his notes. “So listen, I’ll draw up those documents we discussed and start looking into some of the details. I’ll be by in a couple of days and we can work out the particulars. You have my number. I’m going to take this case.”

“Relax, man,” Jesse said, leaning back in his chair again, his serious expression disappearing with a wide grin. “No need to schmooze us, here. We trust you. We know you.” He said it like there hadn’t been a wide chasm of years since the last time they had even spoken, but Sam figured that these men had been his brother’s closest friends for several years and, in Winchester terms, that was a hell of a long time; maybe they did understand more than Sam was giving them credit for. He shook their hands just the same, ignoring the chains and refusing to entertain whether the warm hands that offered up firm and confident handshakes had also wielded weapons with the intent to kill. That was a matter for a later date; for now, he was interested purely in the basics.

Snapping his briefcase closed, Sam picked up his coat and headed toward the door. Before he could knock and indicate his readiness to leave, there was the sound of the lock clicking open, and then the door was swinging wide and a guard stepped aside so that a man in a sharp black suit and coat could come through.

Sam processed the splitting grin on Aaron’s face and the shrill cackle-laugh that erupted passed Jesse’s narrow lips in a haze, his world narrowed to green-gold eyes and a face so perfect and familiar that it felt like a physical blow knocking the breath out of him. “This your lawyer?” the guard was asking, puzzled, his gaze darting to each of the occupants of the room.

“Dean,” Aaron greeted, shaking his head like he couldn’t quite believe it. “As I live and breathe.” It was like the statement confirmed what his eyes were telling him, and Sam exhaled in a whoosh, watching Dean’s eyes flick from Aaron to Jesse, and then over to Sam, like he wasn’t sure who to deal with first. His dilemma was cut short as two guards entered through the prisoner’s entrance and began ushering their charges out.

“Catch you on the flip side!” Jesse yelled as he disappeared through the door, his harsh cackling laugh cut-short when the door clicked shut.

“Now, wait just a minute,” the guard who had shown Dean in said. “I thought you were coming in here for a meeting?”

Dean turned to answer but Sam jumped in before his brother could put his foot in his mouth. “He’s with me. He’s … my legal secretary.” He grabbed a hold of Dean’s arm, even as the shorter man snapped his mouth closed and glared at Sam’s explanation. “You’re late. We’ll talk about this outside.” With a tight smile to the guard, Sam ushered Dean down the hall and into the elevator.

“Dude, get off me,” Dean said, breaking Sam’s hold and pressing the button for the main floor, the gesture taking him to the opposite side of the cramped space.

Sam stared at his brother’s profile for a moment; took in the familiar muss of hair and the splash of freckles, and then looked at the pressed suit and the unfamiliar black coat his brother was holding. He tried to remember when, if ever, he had seen his brother dressed so presentably. “Dean, what the hell are you doing here?”

Dean turned a cheeky bright grin on him. “Well hello to you too, Sammy. Been a few years.”

“Uh, _yeah_ ,” Sam said. “Try four years.” Dean made a face like he didn’t believe it had been that long, or that he didn’t care, both of which Sam knew were bullshit. “Now what are you _doing_ here?”

Dean sighed, turning to face his brother. “Could ask the same thing of you.” As the elevator chimed and the doors slid open Dean added, “They’re my friends, y’know.” Sounding so surprisingly hurt and defensive that Sam almost missed the flash of silver that his brother pulled from his pocket and dropped in the waste bin, before handing his coat over to pass through the metal detectors.

Sam bit his tongue as they both handed their visitor’s badges back to the front desk, but he kept in close-step until they were back outside in the bracing chill before he hissed, “Were you going to _break them out_?”

“What?” Dean said, flipping the collar of his coat up against the wind. “That’s crazy-talk.” He halted his steps as Sam continued down the block to the parking lot. “Dude, I’m this way.” It brought Sam up short, and he realized that he had fallen so easily into old habits, matching steps with Dean, ready to follow him to the Impala and head out. So much had changed, and nothing at all, and it was crashing in on him all at once leaving him stranded, feeling oddly alone.

“Right,” Sam said. He looked around in order to orient himself, then nodded down the street. “I saw a place down that way, not too far. Could do with some lunch, yeah?”

Dean hesitated. “Do they serve beer?”

“Sure,” Sam said, even though he had no idea if that was true. Still, it brought Dean into step with him again, and they walked a block huddled inside their jackets, saying absolutely nothing.

  
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When he had looked up Minneapolis online, just after he had booked a hotel but before he had bothered to pack anything, Sam had discovered that the city had an enclosed pedestrian footbridge called the Skyway that connected about eighty blocks of the city without having to set foot out-of-doors. He could see the rationale, but as he walked, shoulders hunched and collar flipped up to stave off some of the chilled wind that was whipping down the street against him, he didn’t think he would trade for the warmth. It wasn’t as cold as some of the horror stories Sam had heard about Minnesota, but it was certainly a temperature he was not quite accustomed to.

Even with the chill slowing the steady race of his thoughts to the sluggish ebb of molasses, Sam could not reconcile himself to the fact that for the first time in four years, he was walking down a street in downtown Minneapolis with his brother. It was a soothing balm, like suddenly the world had righted itself after been topsy-turvy for so long, and it also felt like he could rip his brother apart with his bare hands, he was so angry. Four years ago, Sam had lost everything that had mattered and he still wasn’t clear about why.

“What about this place?” Sam said, gesturing to the sign across the street that declared in red lettering its name: Restaurant Max. It looked respectable, and maybe a little classier than the roadside diners that Dean was still likely in the habit of visiting. Sam didn’t fail to catch the slightly longing look his brother flashed to the Irish pub on the other side of the street, but he refused to give any ground, striding across the road the moment the light turned, before Dean had even accepted the restaurant.

It was early enough in the dinner hour that when Sam asked for a booth, they were given one of the larger ones near the back. He nodded politely at the waitress, dropped his briefcase onto the dark-green fabric covered bench and spread his coat carefully atop it before sliding into the booth, stopping abruptly when his thigh bumped against Dean’s legs which were stretched out, bridging the distance between the benches. Sam stole a surprised, cautious look across the table, but his brother was concentrating on loosening his tie, and Sam watched as familiar fingers twisted the top buttons of a crisp white shirt free. Dean picked up his menu, focusing on the dinner options to the exclusion of everything else, and Sam took a long sip of his water before mirroring his brother. Dean’s posture was familiar, and suddenly they were in a sunny roadside diner, Dean hunched over his menu as their dad slapped his hand down on the table and glared, _“Sam, we’re not talking about this here. We’re going to eat and then get onto the road, and you will not mention this Stanford business again. Clear?”_

With neither one of them willing to give ground, they sat in silence until their waitress returned to take their orders. “How’ve you been?” Dean managed once the menus and any further attempt at distraction was removed from them.

Sam huffed, wanting to snap that it was a poor excuse for a conversation starter. “I’ve been good,” he said, instead. “Real good. I have a place of my own, and I’m practicing law in New York. I’m settled, you know? It’s good.” His expression felt oddly plastic given that until that moment, he had been perfectly contented with his apartment and his life in the boom and bustle of New York City.

Dean nodded, sipped at the beer that had come as Sam had been answering. “What about that girl. What was her name? The blonde?”

“Jess,” Sam said, narrowing his eyes a little as he saw through the casual tone. “Naw, we broke up.”

Dean might have been practiced at playing a part, but he couldn’t hide anything from Sam, and the slight widening of his eyes expressed the honest surprise that the dismissive tone of his voice masked, “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, couldn’t help adding, “Four years ago.” Dean’s gaze skittered away and Sam savored the dark twist of satisfaction as his brother glanced out at the floor of the restaurant, and over to the bar where some of the wait staff had gathered and were joking with the dark-haired bartender. Dean was paler than Sam remembered, and there was a new scar that he could just make out the start of, at the base of his brother’s neck. Sam cleared his throat. “How about you?”

“You know how it goes,” Dean said, turning back and taking another pull of his beer. “Been hunting, moving around, the usual. I’m only here because I hadn’t heard from Aaron or Jesse. One of the guys that they run with said something had happened.”

Sam snorted. “Come on.”

“What?” Dean asked, his brows drawing together as he met Sam’s gaze.

“I’m supposed to believe that you just happen to be blowing through town at the same time that I get a call that basically demands that I be here?”

Dean tipped his head a little, “You think this has to do with you?”

“Does it?”

“What? No!” Dean rubbed at his forehead and shook his head. “I keep in touch with both of them, okay? I mean; we’re not on the phone every day, but we check-in, y’know? When I didn’t hear from them for a couple of days, I checked-around, and when I heard something was up, I came out. That’s all.”

Sam nodded idly, focused on his drink as he mulled over what his brother had said. There was a wealth of words that needed to be said, but in the middle of a restaurant wasn’t the place, and Sam was too busy thinking that finally, after all that time, he had his brother sitting at the table across from him. He turned the conversation to the most pressing issue, “They told me they weren’t good guys.”

Dean shrugged. “That would be the truth.”

“It doesn’t bother you?” Years of hopping from one town to the next, being stashed with one of their father’s acquaintances or another, and never once had Dean shown any real attachments to the people he met. He came in like a hurricane, sweeping everyone student and teacher alike off their feet, so they were all equally in his sway, and then he swept out just as easily, never displaying an ounce of regret. Where Sam had fought to fit in, struggled to find something solid outside of his family to hold onto, Dean had always seemed to understand that there was nothing outside of the Impala and their family that could even pretend at stability. Which left Sam wondering why two supposed criminals currently housed in a jail, who Dean knew off and on for about five years over fifteen years ago were worth the effort of keeping in touch. “Do you even know what they’ve been doing since you were kids?”

“I know enough,” Dean dismissed. Their waitress returned with their meal and suddenly Dean had an excuse not to maintain conversation, digging into his food with enthusiasm, periodically groaning in a way that made Sam shift awkwardly where he sat. “Man,” Dean said around a mouthful, “You shouldn’t have settled for that pansy-ass salad. This steak is incredible.” Beneath the table, Dean’s leg bumped against Sam’s thigh, stayed pressed close as his left foot rested lightly, just at the end of Sam’s shoe. “I’m assuming you’re paying, since it was your decision to come here.”

With his brother’s eyes bright with mischief, Sam knew that was the end of any serious conversation, what little there had been of it. Talking with Dean was a slow process that drew on every ounce of the patience Sam had cultivated over the years. Still, his brother was there, expounding on the virtues of steak, teasing and carefree and Sam couldn’t be anything but relieved and grateful, like a weight had slipped off his shoulders. He leaned back in the booth and pressed his thigh against Dean’s leg and played along.

  
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It wasn’t without precedent, but Dean never got used to stopping in big cities. Everything had a busy, self-important pulse that the rhythm of his own life just never mirrored. Habit had him driving around the streets of Minneapolis in search of a cheap motel that didn’t put him too far away from Jesse and Aaron. He couldn’t remember it ever being so difficult to find a nondescript little place to hole-up, but after bouncing back-and-forth between Minneapolis and St. Paul, he gave in and asked the hunched little gnome of a man who ran the gas station he stopped at and got directions that seemed promising.

By the time he pulled into the motel’s parking lot it was late, and cold enough that he barely spared a moment to fret about the state of his car, all alone outside without even an awning to shelter her from the snow. He promised he’d wake up early and scrape the ice off her, which was about the best he could do, before he hauled his bag from the trunk and took the stairs to his room at a jog.

The room was small and the windows were drafty, so Dean cranked the thermostat before he tossed the keys onto the bed and dropped his bag on the fold-out luggage stand, rifling through to pull out the essentials. The ritual was ingrained, and it didn’t matter that he wasn’t in Minneapolis on a hunt, because he had yet to spend a night in a room that didn’t have at least a line of salt running by the exterior access points. He hung a charm on the window in case the draft weakened the salt line, before walking over to the nightstand.

Dean pulled the Bible from the drawer and hefted it in his hand. It had a green hardcover and no visible sign of use beyond the spine that had clearly been cracked. He dropped it into the considerably larger dresser drawer on which the television was perched, and continued back toward his bag, working his tie off and shedding his suit jacket.

The bathroom was small, but there wasn’t a window in it like some motels had, which meant that at least the room wasn’t cold. He snatched a cream-colored towel from the towel rack and leaned into the tub to turn the shower on, twisting the heat on full to warm up as he headed back to the other room, shedding his socks and belt along the way.

He pulled a fresh change of clothes from his bag, stuffing the dirty ones back inside, trying to keep the dirty clothes to one side. After wrapping his towel around his waist, Dean switched on the television, glancing at the list of upcoming shows as he put the suit pants and jacket on a hanger and set them in the closet, the only item in there, his coat hanging off the back of the chair. He took his gun from his bag and carried that, and a worn copy of _The Count of Monte Cristo_ over to the nightstand.

Dean checked the gun prior to setting it down beside his cellphone, and then opened the drawer and set the book inside. The book was held together by a rubber band, some of the pages loose and tucked inside; it had a blue spine and on the front cover was a picture of a stone cell, markings scraped into the wall with a barred window letting in just a trace of light. Dean looked down at it a moment before he closed the drawer, turned the volume up on the television as he headed back toward the bathroom.

  
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The tiny shower had green tile walls the exact shade of which made Dean wonder if they might have accrued that color over time. There were two separate knobs for hot and cold; he was not entirely surprised that when he turned the hot to full, the result was a tepid splash of water with as much conviction as a summer drizzle. Years of hopping from one motel to the next had taught him to appreciate the little things, like the fact that at least it was a private shower located in his own room, rather than a communal one he had to trek across the parking lot to access.

He toweled off quickly, ignoring the rough scratch of the thin towel that barely absorbed any of the damp, wondering, not for the first time, if he should maybe invest in his own towel. The opening chords of Zeppelin’s ‘Trampled Under Foot’ rang out just as he was wrapping the scratchy material about his waist, and Dean hurried into the other room, grabbing his cellphone from where he’d left it on the nightstand. “Hello?”

There was a pause before a voice that was definitely not Sam’s said, “Dean?”

“Aaron?” He supposed there was no reason why it should have been Sam calling. Four years was a long time, and it hadn’t seemed as if his brother was in any rush to reconnect; he probably needed a bit of time just to get used to the idea of Dean being in the same city; Sam had always been slow to adjust, even as he had been eager for change. Maybe after he got past the shock of their meeting they could get around to sorting through the rest of it. Still, Aaron was about the furthest down the list of people Dean had been expecting to call, especially given how much he hated phones on a good day. “What’s wrong, man?”

“You should know. It doesn’t feel right having you here without you knowing, and you shouldn’t hear it from anyone else.”

Dean frowned and rubbed idly at a drip that had leapt from the end of his hair, trailing down across his nose. “What is it?”

“One down, Dean,” Aaron said, his voice low and hoarse, like he had to work to get the words out. In the background, Dean could hear the chatter and ruckus that reminded him that his friend was calling on a prison phone line. “One down.”

His initial confusion was swept neatly aside by a tenuous, cold-shock of horror-hope. Such a tight conflict of emotions knotting up in his gut, striking him so hard and so fast he thought his vision might have actually whited-out. His throat felt tight, but he forced himself to push the word out, past the part of him that cried that he already understood the cryptic statement, “What?”

“One Edward Dowell.” There was a shuddery breath and then a click and silence. Dean sat with his cellphone pressed to his ear, damp from the shower with a wet towel soaking through the sheets of his bed, and felt nothing and everything.

  
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The guard opened the door, and Dean adjusted his tie, trying to look serious and pinched like how Sam had looked when they’d met in that same room the other day. He nodded succinctly at the guard and dropped into the closest chair, fiddling with the notepad he’d brought in an attempt to more aptly exemplify the legal secretary that Sam had claimed him to be.

“Dean,” Jesse greeted with a vague smirk.

Dean was in no position to humor it, however. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Jesse looked honestly confused. “What?”

“Dowell? Are you kidding me?”

Jesse settled back in his chair, shaking his head. “Naw, man. I wouldn’t kid about something like that.” He stuck his tongue in the side of his cheek and tipped his head, eyes flicking over Dean as he said, “Thought you’d react a little differently, though.”

“No,” Dean said. “No, that’s great. Really. Super.” He leaned forward across the table, “So _what the hell is Sam doing here_?”

Jesse and Aaron shared a look that at least held a bit of remorse. “Dean, I thought he knew, honestly.”

“Right, because it’s really something I’d tell my kid brother.”

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Aaron said. “The both of us are. We can request different counsel.”

“No,” Jesse said. “Look, we’re probably going down for this. I’d rather it be with someone who’s genuinely giving it all they have, because they’re invested, because they care about the outcome. Anyway, can you honestly believe that Sam will just leave ‘cause we ask him? Now he knows it’s us, he’s gonna do some checking around, either way.” Jesse had a valid point, even if Dean would rather deny it. Whatever they did now was too little, too late.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Aaron said. “I mean, he didn’t remember us until we prompted him. There’s nothing to make him think this is anything but a straight-up act of random violence.”

“Gang violence,” Jesse said with a smirk, it was obviously something he was used to hearing.

“You should have talked to me, first.”

“You’re right,” Jesse said. “Of course you’re right. But maybe it’s worth thinking about it from where we’re sitting. Of all the times and all the places, we end up at the same place at the same time. It all comes back, man. Every bit of it. They picked us up for it and we still couldn’t believe everything hadn’t just been a dream. I mean, we’ve wished for it often enough. So we wanted one familiar thing, one thing we remembered, and we couldn’t reach you.”

“The boys had the word out,” Aaron agreed. “They were looking for a Winchester; any old one would do. We weren’t going to turn our noses up when the first word we got back was from a familiar face, who also had himself a law degree. We’re only human.”

Dean let his eyes fall closed for a second, his jaw clenching and unclenching before he consciously exhaled in a slow steady whoosh. When he looked back up at the two men, his closest friends, his anger was harnessed. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll figure this out, but you’re not going down for this. Not for this one.”

  
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The Normandy was a nice, fancy name for the Best Western that was located about fourteen minutes from Snelling Motor Inn, where Dean had a room, and barely a minute away from Hennepin County Jail. It was squat and sprawling, a three-story boxy building that was doing its best to look historic, surrounded by sleek, tall structures with glass and metal that glinted and reeked of modernity. Dean thought it could have done without the splotches of smooth grey cement that were maybe meant to make the place look old but managed instead to make it seem like it had been attacked by a flock of really big birds with digestive problems and good aim. He had hoped, when it occurred to him that his brother was a respectable lawyer earning his own way through life, that maybe Sam had stashed himself away at the Hilton, which looked at least as if it belonged in the middle of a bustling city.

Still, as Dean found his way to what the man at the front desk assured him was Sam Winchester’s room, there was something that just felt more like his brother than the cold whites and blues the Hilton’s website had displayed just failed to capture. It was reassuring in a way, like maybe Sam was still Sam, despite his Stanford degree and his apartment in New York and his career.

Sam answered the door on the third knock, his hair ruffled in that way it got when he’d been researching and brushing it back constantly to keep it out of his face. His feet were bare, and he was in a pair of loose navy sweats and a white t-shirt that stretched tightly across his broad shoulders. He said, “Dean,” in that startled, pleased way that Dean remembered from years ago, and it was that more than anything that allowed him to answer as casually as he did.

“Tell me you haven’t gone totally respectable,” he purred, leaning his shoulder against the door-frame. There was heat in Sam’s eyes as he tugged Dean inside, and Dean took a quick moment to survey Sam’s hotel suite while his brother closed and locked the door. There was an open laptop and papers scattered on the coffee table by the sofa that sat beside a fake fireplace and in front of a tragically small flat screen television that hung on the painted wall. There was a kitchenette but, more importantly, Dean could see an acceptably large king-sized bed through the other room.

Sam moved forward, stepped right into Dean’s personal space like he belonged there, like he’d always been there, and then Dean forced himself to stop thinking, stop caring, and just go with it.

The kiss maybe shouldn’t have felt as good as it did, but Dean had already made his decision, turned his face up and opened his mouth further and met Sam’s questing tongue with his own. Sam’s hand wrapped around the back of his head as he pressed closer, like he was trying to fuse them together right there in the middle of the suite, his breath hot as it ghosted across Dean’s cheek and down his throat, neither one wanting to pull back to catch his breath.

With a sharp tweak of Sam’s right nipple, Dean took control of the familiar dance, sucking a path from the corner of Sam’s lips down his throat, tasting the salt of his brother’s skin as his hands worked the sweatpants off slender hips, letting them drop to the floor. “I missed you,” Sam said, his mouth following Dean’s as Dean used his shirt to tug him forward. “Dean,” he groaned, a warm gust of air across Dean’s ear that made him shiver.

Dean dismissed the couch and spun them slowly so he could see his target, the big king-sized bed that sat neatly made and welcoming. Sam tripped over the pants that were still around his ankles as Dean’s hands cupped his hips, slid up and under the shirt, sliding the rough cotton past perked nipples until, finally, Sam stood naked and wanting, knees pressed to the back of the bed and eyes hooded, mouth open and panting and already looking like sin. Dean pushed him back and climbed over him, kicking his boots and socks free as he moved to perch above his brother.

At some point, Sam had worked open Dean’s belt and jeans, his coat and zip-top long discarded; Dean was a little surprised to realize he couldn’t pinpoint when but dismissed it as unimportant. All that mattered was the hot, wet curve of cock that stretched up Sam’s belly.

“C’mere,” Sam said, one hand slipping around the back of Dean’s neck and pulling him forward until their lips touched. _“I don’t think you understand what it is to have rules. You’ve got to have rules, and you’ve got to have discipline.”_ Sam’s hands worked their way up the skin on Dean’s back, pressing him closer as he arched upward, and Dean spared a moment to think about Sam leaving a wet spot on the front of his jeans. _“Down on your knees.”_

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked, his brows furrowing as he pulled back, stopped rucking Dean’s shirt along his torso.

Dean shook his head, managing a sly smile as he knelt up. Sam’s hands dropped to his hips as he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside. “Nothing at all,” Dean said as he pressed his mouth to Sam’s collarbone and sucked hard until Sam arched under him again and gave that helpless shiver-moan that meant he was having trouble thinking coherently, which was just fine with Dean.

His mouth blazed across his brother’s torso, suckling and laving one nipple, as his hand pinched and rubbed the other. He listened to Sam’s choked, needy gasps and quiet chants that Dean realized were his name, over and over like a prayer. He trailed his tongue lower, dipped it tauntingly into and out of Sam’s belly-button, swirled it around and round until he moved on, moved down further still until, in a swift and ruthless move, he took Sam in his mouth right to the quick.

 _“This is what happens when you don’t follow the rules.”_

It had been a while, and maybe Dean had been overconfident because for a moment he felt his throat constricting, felt a desperate panicked tension zing through him as he thought _'no, god no,'_ but then Sam whispered his name and he looked up, saw Sam’s hooded hazel eyes watching him, Sam’s hand cupping gently at the back of his head, and Dean could breathe again.

He smirked as he pulled back, licked teasingly at Sam’s cock, tracing patterns with a firm tongue, and then ghosting a breath across his brother’s skin, working slowly, keeping hold of Sam’s gaze until Sam couldn’t hold it anymore, could do nothing but moan and move his hips in little start-stops of action like he was trying to remember not to thrust up. Dean braced a hand against the jut of Sam’s hip and took him in to the root once more, sucked and swallowed until Sam managed a choked, “Dean,” that Dean knew the meaning of and ignored; he drank his brother down until there was nothing left and sat back, more than a little pleased with the intensity of the reaction his efforts had garnered.

He had only the briefest of moments to feel smug before Sam’s hand, once resting passively turned into a grip on his hair strong enough to compel Dean forward and into a helpless kiss as Sam’s other hand found its way to Dean’s hip and worked his jeans and boxers down, setting his cock free. Sam pulled back long enough to lick his palm, and then Dean’s eyes were falling closed and he was dropping down a little heavier on his brother’s chest, his cock wrapped up in a firm hand and his mouth devoured, the scent of his brother’s sweat and Sam’s cologne, lemon and ginger spice, filling him up.

It wasn’t romantic, how he came with his hands fisting the blankets on either side of his brother’s head, his own head tucked into the side of Sam’s neck, warm breath in his ear as Sam said, “Come on, Dean,” as Sam’s tongue laved that spot just there behind Dean’s ear, Sam’s hand on his cock and the other in his hair. It left Dean shaking and shaken, not sure if he should curl up in his brother’s arms or grab his clothes and go, but that wasn’t anything new, and Dean pressed a kiss to the side of Sam’s neck and closed his eyes.

  
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When Dean managed to swim up from the afterglow he was no longer sticky or half-clothed, but instead he was tucked under the blankets and wrapped up in Sam’s arms. It shouldn’t have been that easy, but Dean was thankful that it had been. “Hey, you awake?” he asked as he twisted until he faced his brother.

Sam blinked open an eye and glared, “Not for lack of trying.”

“Why’d you come out here?”

Sam blinked open his other eye and looked back as if he were really considering the question; or, more likely, considering Dean’s reason for asking. “I got a call from a client. It’s what I do.”

“But you drove out to Minneapolis.”

Sam shrugged awkwardly and let his left hand slip down to rest casually on Dean’s hip, rubbing his thumb idly back-and-forth across Dean’s skin. “I think maybe it was always the plan, never to be too confined to a single place. New York is flexible; it has reciprocity with a lot of states, which simplifies the back-and-forth a bit. Besides, it was sort of nice to be on the road again.”

“Liar,” Dean teased. “I’ve seen your piece of shit car.” Sam didn’t bother to deny it; Dean figured his brother knew a losing battle when he saw one. “Sammy,” Dean said, when the silence stretched between them, not entirely uncomfortable. Sam turned from where he had been idly watching his thumb moving against Dean’s hip and Dean said, “don’t take the case.”

Sam frowned, his hand stilling as he braced himself up on the pillow. “What’s going on?” Dean let his gaze slip away, looked at the rug where a trail of clothes directed his gaze out into the suite where Sam had forgotten to turn off one of the lamps. Sam’s sigh was part frustration and part resignation; Dean felt oddly affectionate as he heard it, reminded all at once of how well his brother knew him, no matter how long it had been. “If you can give me a reason why I shouldn’t take this case, then I won’t.”

The tone was everything: that solid, confident promise that struck Dean to the core. One honest reason... but Dean couldn’t give it, couldn’t conjure one, couldn’t get the words out. All he managed was, “You said yourself, they’re not good guys,” which felt a little bit like a betrayal, even if he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.

“I knew going in I wouldn’t only be defending the good guys. It’s part of the job, and I kind of like the idea of helping out friends. Even if they’re your friends and they have dubious morals.” His hand moved from Dean’s hip to his face, brushed a strand of hair back and Dean endured the frowning scrutiny that meant Sam was trying to puzzle him out.

Dean forced himself to shrug and turn away, like the answer was of no concern to him. “I should probably go.”

“You should stay here. Better than driving all the way back to wherever you’re holed up.”

“It’s barely a fifteen minute stretch,” Dean argued, but he settled back under the blankets and let his mind drift, his brother’s arm settling across his belly as Sam pressed against his side. He thought about waiting until Sam fell asleep before heading out, but it had been four years and Sam still smelled the same, still held him the same, and Dean ended up falling asleep before his brother could start snoring the same as well.


	2. Part Two

  
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> Moral wounds have this peculiarity - they may be hidden,  
> but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed  
> when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.  
>  ** _The Count of Monte Cristo_ , Alexandre Dumas**

Sam woke with his nose pressed into a rough cotton pillowcase that smelled of a combination bleach and detergent unique to hotels; the scent was neither particularly fresh nor clean. He was sprawled on his stomach, one arm stretched across the mattress like he had been reaching for something in his sleep.

Rubbing his eyes, Sam checked first the clock and then the rest of the suite. There was nothing to indicate that Dean was or ever had been in the room, though the crease in the pillow where he had slept was still warm. It wasn’t a surprise, but that didn’t stop Sam from feeling disappointed and he dropped back on the bed rubbing a hand through his hair, sparing a moment to wallow in the muddled twist of emotions that Dean never failed to incite.

Memories flashed through his head as he lay there: Dean’s smiling face when they were kids, running out to meet the first snowfall and pulling Sam along for the ride; Dean who heated up Spaghetti-O’s and told silly stories to distract him from his nightmares and who never let him face a fight alone. Dean who supported and defended him, even when it came to their dad, and who would sacrifice just about anything for him and had never turned his back on Sam … except once.

With a frustrated whoosh of breath, Sam pushed himself up and out of bed, broke away from the circling thoughts so he could concentrate on what he needed to get done. The most important thing, he decided, was to get some food for the kitchenette so he was not spending a small fortune on restaurants and room service.

  
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Bobby always answered the phone like he already knew it was Dean. At first, Dean thought Bobby called everyone 'boy' in that gruff, affectionate tone that made him think of home and belonging. Then he just figured the man was psychic. Now, he supposed that Bobby just knew him too well - like maybe even when Dean thought he was being unpredictable, Bobby had him all figured out. At first, the idea of someone other than Sam knowing him so well had been daunting, but Bobby had come through for Dean enough times that he'd just come to accept it.

“Hey, Bobby,” Dean answered the familiar greeting.

“Geezes, Dean,” Bobby said. “You sound like someone just ran over yer dog.”

“Naw, things are okay, just tired s’all. And,” Dean paused and for a moment, considered leaving it there; the idea was so tempting he had to struggle to continue, “I’m in Minnesota.”

“You visiting Jim?”

Dean smiled to himself, appreciating everything Bobby was and wasn’t saying with that question. “I’m in Minneapolis right now, visiting some old friends. Aaron and Jesse…”

“Been a while since I heard about them. Those boys in trouble?”

“You know how it is.”

“Yeah, I do,” Bobby said, exasperation melding with resignation to make that tone of voice that Dean had only ever heard from that man. “There something yer not telling me, boy?”

“I dunno,” Dean rubbed his brow. “Yeah, probably.” Then, because he actually didn’t feel like getting into all that, he said, “Sam’s here.”

Bobby guffawed. “About time you boys talked, don’tcha think?” The silence stretched a little, and when Bobby spoke again it was with fondness in his tone, “You take care of yourself.” As if Dean couldn’t be trusted to do that without being explicitly told. Dean huffed; maybe the man had a point. “And call every once in a while. Let me know if I need to round up the cavalry.”

Dean smiled a little wider and not for the first time felt a burst of gratitude and affection that he would never voice for the man, not that he ever had to. “Will do, Bobby,” he said, and then hung up the phone.

  
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Jesse Deacon had been bouncing in and out of jail since he had been a teenager. He was a suspect in four unsolved homicides and his record was a laundry list of violent, erratic crime that ran the gamut from robbery to murder. Though there was a significant number of bar fights and back-alley assaults, Sam noted with vague interest that none of the violent incidents had included women. He and Aaron were two of the founding members of the Mad Dog Gang, which Sam discovered was a fairly notable gang in Minneapolis, and also a significantly destructive one, which was rumored to have connections with organized crime.

Whereas Deacon’s record painted the picture of a hotheaded violent and unpredictable man, the information Sam had on Aaron Conyers was the opposite. Aaron had committed his first murder at the age of seventeen; in exchange he had received fifty dollars. He hadn’t been in jail nearly as frequently as Jesse, but Sam suspected that owed to the few years operating as a strong-arm for organized crime. He did drugs and had a wife who lived somewhere in Sioux City, Iowa. There was no indication that either man had ever met their victim, Edward Dowell, before that night in January.

For his part, Edward Dowell had been a hard working citizen who had earned his living as a guard in a couple of jails before he’d moved to Minneapolis and become the driver of a Brink’s truck. He had a two-bedroom apartment in St. Paul, with a single bed in one room and an office in the other. None of the jails Dowell had worked at over the years matched any visited by Conyers or Deacon, and neither man had been imprisoned at the same time anyway.

Given the information that Sam had splayed across his sofa and coffee table, it seemed fairly clear that the motive for the murder was gang violence, random and impersonal. The more he looked at his notes, however, the less Sam considered that an acceptable explanation. Random public violence fit Jesse’s M.O. but Aaron’s crimes were all premeditated and meticulous, and if his diminishing arrests were anything to go by, he’d been getting better at planning. Blowing someone away in the middle of a pub was certainly not something that fit his pattern.

In addition, there was the report on the bod: seven shots were fired, seven bullets had entered the victim, and each shot had been delivered at close range. The wounds were consistent with witness accounts that the two men stood across the table and raised their weapons. Dowell had been hit once in the groin, once at the joint in each arm, twice in the chest, once in the throat and the finishing shot went straight through the middle of his head. Outside of being sadistic, the shots seemed fairly targeted to Sam. If the intent was to kill publicly, why fire the first shot under the table? Jesse, but especially Aaron, had proved themselves to be expert marksmen, which meant they hit what they aimed at, and they’d been standing close to the victim, which meant there was little to no reason to miss their target. To Sam, it meant that there was some significance in the location of the shots, because concentrated weapons fired to the chest and head would have been more of a mess, and therefore more of a demonstration. The more Sam looked at the crime, the more it seemed like something personal, even if none of the information he had supported that notion.

  
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Snelling Motel was a two-story horseshoe-shaped seafoam-green building that offered no covered parking. Sam pulled into a spot beside the Impala and noted with fond amusement that the sleek black car had been thoroughly whisked of snow; the one pristine thing in the entire lot.

Dean’s room was in the corner on the second floor, and Sam waited for a moment after he knocked, knowing that the absolute silence emanating from inside was not necessarily an indication of his brother’s absence.

“Sam,” Dean said, his voice cautious and his body blocking most of the gap he’d opened into his room. Sam raised an eyebrow and tilted his head; after a moment Dean relented, stepping aside and letting his brother through.

The carpet in Dean’s room was green and beige and packed down so thoroughly that it was barely carpet at all. There was a plain wood chest of drawers on top of which sat a black, boxy television set and a little plastic sign that boasted free HBO. A tiny square table of the same pale wood with a matching chair was in the corner, where a telephone and a pad of legal paper covered in Dean’s writing sat, obscuring most of its surface. The desk chair was mostly blocked-in by the heater, which Dean had set to funnel warm air into the room, likely to counteract the draft from the window above. A nightstand was wedged into the opposite corner, with a very tall and precarious lamp, as well as one of Dean’s favorite guns and his cellphone. Mostly, though, Sam was caught up by the fact that the bedspread and matching curtains featured big squares of pink and green and beige, with great big flowers. It made Dean’s worn, khaki duffel bag sitting on the folding luggage rack beside the bed look supremely out of place. Dean himself, for that matter, hardly seemed to belong in the cramped space, with its clean white walls and flower border. “Jesus, Dean, did you ask for the Rose Suite?”

“Shut up,” Dean muttered, dropping the knife he had brought with him to the door onto the surface of his king-sized bed. “Seriously, Dude, pick a spot. There’s not enough room for your Yeti-size self to be standing around blocking up the place.” Sam moved to take the chair by the tiny desk and idly noted the lines of salt running across the window ledge and by the door.

Dean settled onto the bed, his back propped-up by the pillows he’d stacked against the headboard, his jean-clad legs stretched out in front of him. “So?” he prompted, “to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

Sitting in his brother’s motel room, Sam started to rethink his reasons for tracking the man down. The twisted net of conflicting emotions with which he had awoken were surging back and he couldn’t pick where to start, or what he wanted to say. In the end, “I wasn’t sure you’d still be here,” came tumbling out before he had thought it through and Dean’s gaze skittered away. Satisfaction that his comment had struck home warred with a vague sense of guilt, but Sam thought that it was only fair. After all, he had woken to an empty bed, and Dean had said his only reason for being in Minneapolis in the first place had been to make certain his friends were okay. There wasn’t much Dean could do about them being in jail.

Dean snatched up an open bottle of beer from where it had been resting on the floor beside the bed and Sam rubbed his brow. “Look,” he said. “That’s not why I came.” Cool green eyes focused on him and Sam pushed his hair back and tried to come up with a solid purpose for his presence. “How much do you know about what happened?” Dean shrugged. “I mean, have Aaron or Jesse said anything?”

Dean’s gaze narrowed slightly. “What’s up?”

“I dunno, maybe I’m just over-thinking things.” It didn’t feel as if he were; Sam had instincts about his cases the same way his dad had instincts about hunting. “It’s one of the most important things to remember,” John had said, “Always trust your gut. Sometimes it makes all the difference.” Sam ran his hand through his hair again, as if he could physically push away the thought of his dad. “Did either of them know the victim at all?”

Dean blinked at him. “I dunno,” he said. “Who was the victim?”

“Some guy named Edward Dowell. He drove a Brinks truck, lived alone; didn’t even own a pet or anything. As far as I can tell, he was just an ordinary, boring guy with a library card and a handful of friends who all say he was a good guy who mostly kept to himself,” Sam leaned back in the chair and frowned, mind still wrapped in the curious conflicting facts. “Neither one of them mentioned him?”

“Why would they?”

Sam sighed. “It just, the murder was tagged as gang violence because there didn’t seem to be any motive for it. But the way he was killed, the location of the bullets, it seems personal to me. I mean, it was a long shot, but I was just wondering if maybe you knew something.”

“Sorry,” Dean said, taking another pull of beer. “I can’t help you.”

Sam nodded his head. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you about it anyway.”

“Well then, this never happened.”

The silence stretched. Sam took in the casual stretch of his brother, feet bare and legs crossed, he wore faded jeans and a shirt that looked as if it might have been a bold navy color a million washes ago. There was a slight fray at the neckline of the shirt and Sam could see the familiar dark cord of the necklace his brother always wore. There was so much familiar about the man who sat, nursing his beer and casually sprawled across the bed, that Sam wanted to ignore all the differences, but try as he might, he couldn’t push it all away, not the new scars, or the stiff wariness that Sam could see in the lines of his brother’s muscles even if he knew Dean was trying to hide them. He couldn’t ignore how he himself had changed.

“Hey, Dean...” Sam glanced at his brother and then quickly away. He remembered the feel of the other man’s skin, of his hot breath and how their mouths closed together, how everything stopped and started again in that moment. “What happened last night?”

Dean’s smirk was entirely predictable, and Sam was hearing his brother’s reply before Dean had even made it, “If I have to tell you, Sammy, then clearly I wasn’t doing it right.”

“I’m serious, Dean.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want to know why you came over the other night? Why? If you were only going to leave, why bother starting it up again?”

Dean stood up from the bed, and Sam’s knowledge of his brother filled in that Dean wanted to pace, but he was stuck between the wall and the bed, with Sam’s chair blocking his way out. Instead, Dean turned, fiddled with his cellphone on the nightstand as he said, “Clearly it was a mistake,” and then Sam was met with a dull, cold stare as Dean added, “It won’t happen again.”

Sam was up off his chair in an instant. “That’s not what I meant.” He grabbed his brother’s shoulders and push-pulled him until Dean was forced to meet his gaze. “That’s not what I meant,” he repeated, his voice softer. “I’m just… I’m just trying to get my bearings here.”

“I’m not sure that changes my answer.” Sam watched Dean rub a hand over his face and tried to stop himself from reaching for him. “Nothing’s changed. You’ve got your life, Sam. I’m just passing through it.”

He brushed passed but Sam grabbed his arm, tried to ignore the almost invisible flinch his brother gave. “Cut the bullshit, Dean,” Sam said. “You’re not just passing through my life. I wanted you to be a part of it, but if I recall correctly, you were the one who threw that back in my face.”

“Whatever.”

“You always do this,” Sam huffed. “You pull me in and then push me away, like it’s nothing. Like I’m just some toy on a string you take up and put down whenever you want. Like what we have doesn’t mean anything!”

“Yeah, it’s a big gay incestuous romance,” Dean scoffed. “Which is why, the second the opportunity presented itself, you took up with a pretty little blonde.”

“Jess and I broke up.”

“Well good for you, that doesn’t change the fact that you took up with her to begin with.” Dean shook his head, raised a hand a little like he wanted to put a stop to where things were headed. “You know, it’s fine. I don’t care, really. I just want you to be honest with yourself. Do you even know what you want?”

“I’ve already told you what I want.”

Dean’s mouth twisted in a bitter little smile. “Yeah,” he said. “Well, I’m telling you. It was a mistake. And it won’t happen again.”

Sam remembered that day four years ago; the last time they had seen each other, the last time they had fought and Dean had walked away and Sam had been furious enough to trash his entire apartment. He could hear echoes of his brother’s words that day in everything he said, and Sam knew his brother was pushing, just like he always did. Pushed and pushed until Sam inevitably snapped and surrendered, backed off and let him go. “You’re wrong.” But he gave Dean just what he wanted, and walked out the door.

  
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“Did you bring me something?” Jesse asked, leaning forward and peering at Dean like a little kid when Dean entered the private visiting room and began rifling through his briefcase. Despite his apparent good humor, Dean noted that both of his friends looked tense and worn.

“I sure did,” he said. “I smuggled in two of the most delicious burgers money can buy. Unfortunately, I got here during the guards’ shift-change and ate them while I was waiting to be let in.” He settled into his chair and set a black, leather-bound journal down onto the tabletop, a small cloth-covered packet sticking out from between the pages of the book.

“You asshole,” Jesse exclaimed, flopping back in his chair, the chains that kept him semi-confined rattling as he crossed his arms and pouted. “I’m sick of macaroni,” he muttered, then glanced curiously back at his friend. “Where did you get them from?”

“The burgers?” Dean asked. “Some place called Matt’s. They actually melt cheese into the patty. Ingenious.”

“You brought me a Juicy Lucy and then you ate it?” Dean blinked wide innocent eyes at his blond friend. “Mother fucker! I love those things!”

“Man,” Dean said, leaning forward to a put an understanding hand on his friend’s forearm, “I’m in total agreement. They were delicious.” Jesse actually snarled and Dean pulled his arm back and snickered.

“I hate you.”

Aaron had watched the exchange with a fond twist to his lips, but he had a sharp gaze and when Jesse sat back, he asked, “What are you really here for?”

Dean’s eyebrows jerked up a little, teasing in his eyes, “Geez, you know how to make someone feel real appreciated, Conyers.”

“Sam was by earlier,” Aaron continued, like Dean hadn’t spoken at all.

“Yeah, well Sammy’s figuring out the plot holes in the little story you told him.”

“Naw, man,” Jesse said. “We just gave him the facts. If he’s finding plot holes it’s the prosecution’s fault, not ours.”

Dean shrugged, “Either way.”

“So what’s up?” Aaron asked.

“Just thought I’d stop by,” Dean said. “Divert you from your miserable existence that is life without me.” He tipped back in his chair, lazed a little with a bored, distracted expression before he said, “Read any good books lately?”

Aaron laughed quietly, a low, soft sound filled with affection. “No, Dean,” he said, slightly exasperated. “I’ve been a bit distracted. Why, have you?”

“Oh, you know,” Dean said. “I’ve been reading a bit of Dumas.”

“What, still?” Jesse said. “You haven’t finished it yet? Well, I’m not surprised, that book is ridiculously long.”

Aaron’s eyes narrowed a little as he focused on his friend’s feigned casualness. “I read a bit of that every day,” Aaron said. “When I can.”

“Me too.” Dean righted his chair and rested his forearms on the tabletop, the fingers of his left hand tapping on the notebook he had set out, the little cloth packet tucked inside it like a placeholder. “My favorite character is the Abbot. He’s clever, y’know? Wise.”

“He was crazy,” Jesse corrected with a snort.

Aaron’s eyes dropped to the notebook that Dean was resting his hand over; he looked at the bump the package was making in the pages and then raised his brown eyes back to meet Dean. “We’ve really pulled everything apart for you, haven’t we?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Dean dismissed. “Look, I already said, if there’s anything I can do, I’m gonna do it.”

“It’s already done,” Aaron said, shrugging one shoulder. “And you know what? Whatever the court decides, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me, do you understand?”

Dean dropped his elbows on the table, ran his hands over his face and back through his hair before he pulled the notebook from the table and stuffed it back into his briefcase. “It’s not fair,” he muttered, which prompted Jesse to laugh.

“Let’s not even go near that completely ridiculous statement.”

Dean rolled his eyes and then looked away to say, “If you change your mind...” and let the offer hang there.

“There’s more that you can do,” Aaron said, his hand gripped the edge of the table and slowly, he dropped his pinky down out of view, leaving three fingers visible to Dean on the table top. “You keep us together,” he continued, and then raised his eyebrows a little and added, “And you give us direction.”

“Something to consider,” Jesse said, his tongue in his cheek. “And we’ll consider it too, what you said. But I dunno if I’m ready to blow off the legal proceedings. I have this weird confidence in our attorney for some reason.” Which had Dean rolling his eyes all over again, but he managed a smile, however small, and he nodded.

  
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“Bobby?” Sam said, as if he needed to confirm what the caller-ID had told him.

“Sam,” Bobby greeted, like they talked on the phone all the time. “How’re you doin’ kid?”

“I’m okay.” Sam set aside the notes he’d been making about the case and sat up in his chair. “What’s up?”

“I spoke to Dean. He said he bumped into you in Minneapolis?”

“Yeah, I got a murder case I got called out for. The clients are actually two of Dean’s old friends.” At school, Sam had called Bobby with updates about his studies or the new crazy world he was traversing almost as often as he had called his brother; not that his calls to either man had been terribly frequent, but Bobby had listened and remembered things Sam told him, and in a lot of ways he’d filled in for the father that had severed all connection to Sam as soon as he’d stated his intention to leave for Stanford.

“Last I heard you were working out in New York.”

Sam smiled as he said, “Have you been keeping tabs on me, Bobby?”

Bobby chuckled. “Were you under the impression you were flying under the radar? Just ’cause you stop huntin’ don’t mean you’re not still a hunter, Sam. And I keep touch with the hunters I know.”

“Right.” Sam hadn’t thought about it too much before, but it occurred to him that after their dad died, Dean hadn’t been entirely alone, he’d had people who he talked to, who checked in with him and who maybe, sometimes, he talked about his family to. Obviously he did, or why would Bobby have called so soon after he’d bumped into his brother?

“So these clients o’ yours…”

“Yeah,” Sam said, redirecting his train of thought. “Aaron Conyers and Jesse Deacon. Do you know them?”

“A bit.”

“I’ve been trying to remember more about them, but it was a long time ago. They were really goods friends of Dean’s. Sometimes when dad was away and they were over, they’d hang with me, too, help me with my homework. Aaron taught me pretty much everything I know about chess. Then they headed off to summer camp. I was really pissed that dad thought I was still too young to go off on something like that.”

There was a pause, and then Bobby said, “Summer camp?”

“Yeah,” Sam confirmed. “I don’t remember much about it, just that the summer seemed to last forever without Dean around. Why?”

“Nothing.” There was a pause, and then Bobby said, “Y’know, Sam, you should stop by sometime, visit the old place. It’s been a while.”

It seemed an odd thing for Bobby to say and Sam felt a strange twisting ache in his gut. “Is something wrong?”

“What, something’s gotta be wrong for you to visit family?”

“It’s Winchester tradition?” Sam joked, somewhat half-heartedly.

“Yer brother manages just fine.”

The scolding tone was a reminder that Sam said ‘Winchester tradition’, and really meant his dad, and sometimes even himself. Bobby and Dean had gotten along from the first moment they’d met and Sam thought it was because Dean was more like Bobby than their dad. It was something Sam hadn’t entirely realized until he’d been away from it all for a while; that the hunt had never driven Dean the way it did their dad. “Yeah,” Sam said, and then again, stronger, “Yeah, I’ll stop by when this is over. It’ll be good.”

  
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The drive was about two hours long and Sam was in such a rush to leave that it didn’t occur to him until a half hour on the road that he should have probably called ahead. He’d fallen asleep over his notes, his mind muddling thoughts of Dean and his conversation with Bobby together with the defense he was building and memories of 1994. When Sam woke up it was to the realization that there was one other person who might know Aaron and Jesse well enough to give Sam some more insight.

Driving through Blue Earth resurrected memories Sam had thought long-since gone. He could almost see a younger version of his brother running along the sidewalk shouting out for Sam to “Come on! Keep up!” Of all the places their dad had dragged them, Blue Earth had always felt the most like home. Maybe a little of that had to do with the fact that over the years they’d spent the most time there, but a bigger part of that, Sam was sure, was because Pastor Jim had given them roots. He’d drag them to church on the weekend and introduce them to his parishioners, some of who would invariably begin baking treats for them. Sam could remember the last time they’d been there all together where Dean had been an altar boy.

The tall, white boxy church that he pulled to a stop in front of hadn’t changed, even if the years had left it looking perhaps a little more worn. It was bright and stately, and Sam caught himself bounding up the cracked cement steps like he’d always done as a scrawny eleven-year-old. He pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped into the dim candle-lit interior, breathing in the musty incense-thick air.

On the backs of his eyelids Sam watched as Dean, fourteen and lanky, like he hadn’t quite grown into himself yet, stood at the front of the church holding a cross and looking appropriately somber, flanked by Jesse and Aaron as Pastor Jim circled the coffin swinging an incense-burner.

“Sam?” the voice broke through the memory, and Sam jerked and turned, feeling off-kilter and struggling to catch his breath. “Is that you?”

Grinning, Sam stepped over to where the other man stood, found himself tugged into a firm hug. “Pastor Jim,” he greeted, surprised to find how much he towered over the man.

Jim’s hair was more white than dark, though the cut of it was just as Sam recalled, his smile more in his eyes than anywhere as he clapped Sam’s upper arms. “Has it really been that long?” Jim said. “You’re about as tall as our Green Giant.”

Sam laughed and allowed himself to be ushered down the stairs and into Jim’s office. Found himself caught up in another memory, of sitting curled in the corner on one of Jim’s armchairs that practically swallowed him up, reading and listening to the sounds of the choir filtering through the closed doors, feeling impatient for the service to be over so he and Dean could rush off and see the afternoon showing of Highlander III before their dad got back.

“A lot of memories,” Jim said, undoubtedly reading Sam’s look. He pressed a cup of tea into Sam’s hands and settled into his chair behind his cluttered desk. “How have you been?”

“I’ve been pretty good.” However truthful the statement was, Sam found the words constricting in his throat, felt himself wanting to unburden at least part of everything he had been grappling with for so long onto the man who had helped Sam make one of the biggest decisions he’d ever faced, and given him enough support to finally be able to face his father with the news that he wasn’t quite finished with schooling.

“I heard you’re a full-fledged lawyer.”

“For a few years now,” Sam agreed, his eyes following Jim’s glance, and he noticed one of the framed photographs sitting on one of Jim’s side shelves. “Where did you get that? That’s from my graduation.”

“It is indeed,” Jim said, smiling as he reached over and picked it up, eying it fondly before offering it to Sam. In the photograph Sam was in his cap and gown, smiling and accepting his diploma. Sam’s friends had been relieved to finally be finished with law school and had plans to sleep for about a month, or alternately, go out and party into the next week; Sam had barely waited a full three hours before he boarded a plane to New York. “Bobby mailed it to me. He keeps me updated on you boys, more or less.”

Sam glanced up from the picture and smiled before he shook his head. “I didn’t even know Bobby went to my graduation.”

Jim was quiet a moment before he said softly, “He didn’t.”

Sam glanced up and then down once more at the photograph. The image of him was smiling, and he remembered that he hadn’t turned, like so many of his peers had, to face the audience and wave his diploma in triumph; there hadn’t been anyone in the audience for him to wave to. Apparently, however, he’d been mistaken. He held out the framed picture and Jim took it back. “The last time I saw Dean was at the end of the summer, just before I started back to classes,” Sam said as he watched Jim return the picture to its place on the shelf. “He swore up and down that he wouldn’t be there.”

“He was there, Sam,” Jim said. “And he was damned proud, by the way Bobby tells it. Everyone was proud, you know, that you stuck it out, even after the summer you had. Your father, well, I know whenever he spoke about you he couldn’t have sounded any more pleased with what you were doing.”

The last time Sam had heard his father talk about Stanford, the word had been dripped with twisted disdain like it was the filthiest of swears. He’d caught sight of him, though, driving through town or passing through campus, like he still had to keep an eye on things. During that summer of his final year, John had managed to explain, in an awkward and stilted conversation, that his anger had been less about Sam’s choices as about the fact he’d simply been afraid for his son.

“What’s that one?” Sam said, gesturing to another picture that stood next to Sam’s graduation shot. He could make out bright blue stretching above a sea of red-orange.

Jim laughed. “That.” He took the picture down and his grin was bright as he passed it over. “I’m pretty sure your brother doesn’t know anyone else has a copy of that.” Dean had obviously taken the photograph himself, the angle of the shot somewhat awkward. He was sitting on the hood of the Impala in a T-shift, his eyes scrunched a little against the sunlight and he was grinning that bright, wide grin that always tied Sam’s stomach in giddy knots. Behind him stretched a vivid cornflower sky cut through with puffs of white clouds and a jagged, jutting mass of orange-red rock that Sam knew was the Grand Canyon.

It hurt a little in a way that surprised him, to realize that Dean’s life hadn’t somehow just paused while Sam had been away. That somehow his brother had found a balance between living and hunting that worked for him, and he’d done it without Sam, and somewhere in the middle of that, he’d gone to the Grand Canyon, which was a place Sam had always insisted he would go with Dean to see.

“Do you keep in touch with Dean?” Sam found himself asking, wanting to hear about his brother’s life in the past years, something he knew Dean was unlikely to ever share.

“I haven’t spoken to your brother in a long time,” Jim said, the regret clear in his tone even as he took-back the photo, smiled fondly back at Dean’s grinning face. “Not since you boys were last here.”

Sam shifted in his chair, felt uncomfortably eager now that the opportunity to ask what he had come to had presented itself. “I’ve been trying to remember more about that time. I mean, there was school, and Dean making friends with Jesse and Aaron and spending a lot of time at the church, but then he went off to that summer camp and after that, well, I can barely remember.”

“Summer camp?” Jim asked with a frown. “Is that what John told you?” Sam found himself unconsciously bracing himself in his chair, running through the conversation he had with his father that brought on months of Sam acting sullen and uncooperative when he wasn’t all-out yelling at his dad for treating him like a little kid. “Sam, your brother wasn’t in any camp. He and Aaron and Jesse and their friend Grady Mitchell were arrested. He was away because they were all sentenced to Faribault Home For Boys for six months”

“No,” Sam denied. “That doesn’t make sense. We would have gotten him out. Dad wouldn’t have just left him there.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. Your dad was hunting something big, and he thought it was best. I went and visited them all, as often as I could I would drive out there.”

Sam remembered the day Dean had returned from ‘camp’. Jim had dropped him off at the house they’d been renting, and Dean had looked tired and rumpled and Sam had thought somewhat bitterly that there must have been a big party to celebrate the last day of camp. Dean had opened his arms a little when Sam had offered only a subdued “hi” in greeting and said, “What, that’s it? Where’s the love?” and Sam had kicked at the dirt a little before he had shuffled over and thrown his arms around his brother, what had begun as a reluctant hug quickly turning into a clinging welcome-back and ‘I missed you’ embrace.

He remembered pestering his brother a lot, after that. Wanting to hear details, figuring that if their dad wouldn’t let him go to camp at least he could live vicariously through Dean’s experience, but Dean had kept putting him off. Sometimes he would tell exciting stories about hiking trips and games and things he’d learned, and Sam would lie there and listen until he fell asleep, and he would wake up hours later and ask for more. It had made Sam even more determined to go to summer camp, but John had never again let either of his boys go off. Not that Dean stuck around for much longer after that. Somewhere in the first month of the New Year Dean had insisted he was old enough to hunt on his own, and he’d taken off. Summer camp for Sam became the times their dad had let him meet up with Dean wherever he happened to be, which were some of Sam’s favorite childhood memories.

“I can’t believe they both lied to me like that.”

“I can understand that you feel hurt by it, but try to understand it from their point of view. Try to understand your brother’s side of it.”

  
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“Had you met Edward Dowell before that night?” Sam asked before he had even taken his seat.

Jesse blinked at him like he was startled by the question. “No,” he said, drawing the word out like he thought Sam might have suddenly become crazy.

Sam turned to Aaron, “What about you? Had you ever met Edward Dowell?”

Aaron blinked startled eyes at Sam and then turned to Jesse, his expression echoing what Jesse’s drawn-out answer had said. “No,” he said, finally. “What’s going on?”

Sam dropped a file onto the table and sat down on his chair as he flipped it open. “It says right here that Edward Dowell worked as a guard at Faribault Home For Boys from 1992 until 1997, which is really interesting to me, because I have it on good authority that you were both detained for about sixth months at Faribault Home For Boys in 1994. And y’know what’s even more interesting? Edward Dowell was the designated leader of the four guards assigned to the second floor, unit C. Now, I’m gonna make a completely wild guess about what floor and what unit you were both assigned to...”

Silence stretched out, hung heavy in the room and Sam wanted to strike out at the men sitting opposite, wanted to force the answers out. It was strange, years of study and practice combined together until Sam had become used to wielding his words and his knowledge in the same way his father had once taught him to wield a blade. It was too much, though. His niggling doubts about the case and his knowledge about his brother’s secret were twisting him up.

“You shouldn’t be asking us, man,” Jesse said finally. “It’s not us you want to be talking to, anyway. This has nothing to do with the case.”

“It does if whatever happened then gave you motive to gun the man down fifteen years later.”

“We were minors,” Aaron said. “We were both still treated as minors, at that point. Those records are closed.”

“Well,” Sam said. “I want to know. I think I’m entitled.”

“Yeah,” Jesse muttered. “You’re real entitled.”

Aaron leaned forward over the table as he said, “Sam, trust me. Let this one go. There’s nothing we can tell you that’s going make you feel better about any of this, believe me. You’re better off not knowing.”

Sam dropped his head into his hands, tried to hear Aaron over the roaring in his ears, the horrible possibilities rearing up inside his head and pieces were slotting together, things slipping into clear and horrible focus. “Did he,” Sam said, and then stopped, had to wait a moment before he could try again. “Did he touch you?”

“Sam,” Jesse pleaded, then dropped his eyes as Sam turned an angry, desperate gaze on him. “Yes.”

Sam reminded himself to breathe, concentrated on letting out a slow breath before he asked, “Did he hurt you?”

“Yes,” Jesse said, his head bowed. Beside him, Aaron had turned, was facing away from everyone like he simply refused to be a part of the conversation.

Sam thought about stopping, about leaving it there. Jesse was right, knowing what happened then didn’t have bearing on the defense he was building; in fact, it could hurt his argument. The damage was already done, though, and he couldn’t walk out without knowing. “Jesse … what about my brother?”

Jesse’s exhaled breath was audible, and he finally looked up and met Sam’s eyes. “Yeah, Sammy,” he said. “Dean, too.”

  
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He tried to tell himself to calm down, that racing in, given his state of mind, was probably about the worst thing that he could do. In the end, though, Sam jerked his car to a stop in the parking lot of Snelling Motor Inn and was up the stairs and knocking on his brother’s door before he had calmed enough to process he had even arrived. “Sam, what the hell?” Dean said, when Sam pushed into the room. “Come on in, make yourself at home.”

“Just don’t, Dean,” Sam snapped as he tossed his briefcase onto his brother’s bed.

“Jesus, Sammy,” Dean said, then frowned, his eyes scanning over Sam where he stood as he asked, “Are you hurt?”

“I just,” Sam stopped, shook his head and paced a few steps. “What…” which wasn’t the right place to start either, so he stopped again, ran frustrated fingers through his hair and tried to get his thoughts into some semblance of order.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, Sammy. D’you want a beer?” Sam nodded, watched as Dean fished two beers from a tiny box fridge that stood in the open closet.

He took a deep pull of the cold beverage, then met his brother’s gaze and asked, “Did you know Edward Dowell?”

Dean didn’t flinch, didn’t break eye contact. “No.”

“You can tell me, Dean. Did you know Edward Dowell?”

“No,” Dean said again.

“Stop lying to me!” Sam’s fist clenched around the beer in his hand and he thought for a moment about throwing it, hearing that satisfying shattering sound and watching the foamy contents spill onto the rug. “Just tell me,” he said, felt like he was pleading for it, felt like it was a matter of life and death even if that moment had long since passed. “Tell me.”

He got his answer when Dean turned away, his shoulders hunching forward. Sam pulled the file from his briefcase and dropped it, open, onto the bed. “What about Albert Wilson?” Surprised green eyes jerked up to Sam’s face, and Sam nodded. He tried to remind himself to breathe but it felt like he had been stepping up on a panic attack since he’d left Jim’s church. There were parts of the day that he couldn’t remember, wasn’t even sure how he’d made it from the prison to Dean’s room.

He tossed another open folder on the bed, a plain young face with a close-cut buzz of brown hair and wide brown eyes looking up from a photograph. “Bryan Sullivan?” Dean turned and started walking to the desk, barely glanced at the old photograph. “What about Eric Torres, Dean,” he added another open file to the pile. “Did you know him too?”

“You’ve already figured it out,” Dean said. “Why bother asking? Sure. I spent about six months in a youth detention facility, and those were the guards for my unit. Whoopdee friggin’ doo.”

“One more question.” Sam felt powerful and ruthless, drew out one more file and with a vicious twist in his gut he dropped it right onto the desk in front of Dean. “How many of those men were in on what Dowell had going on the side?” Dean stared down at the image of Dowell, sharp features and cool eyes gazing back from the image the file held. The color bled out of Dean’s face so quickly Sam actually wondered if his brother would pass out. “Dean?” he asked, his tone softer, regret edging into his core and he wished he could take it back, go back in time and never figure the truth, or further back still and stop it all.

“Shut up,” Dean said, his voice broken and rough. “Don’t ask me, Sam.”

Sam dropped down onto the rug, tried to look up into his brother’s face. “Was it all of them?” Dean’s eyes scrunched closed and he jerked violently away when Sam braced a careful hand on his knee. “Dean?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because you told me bedtime stories, Dean, about swimming in the lake and pranks you pulled with your friends, and campfires, and I wanted so much to have been there with you. But that was all bullshit, wasn’t it? Dad told me you were at a fucking summer camp, when you were at that place with … with them!”

“Well, he would’ve, wouldn’t he?” Dean said, a bitter twinge in his tone that Sam had never, not once in his entire life, heard from Dean when his brother was talking about their dad.

Sam squeezed his brother’s knee carefully as he asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’s the reason why I ended up there.”


	3. Part Three

  
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>   
> He decided it was human hatred and not divine vengeance  
> that had plunged him into this abyss. He doomed these  
> unknown men to every torment that his inflamed imagination  
> could devise, while still considering that the most frightful  
> were too mild and, above all, too brief for them: torture  
> was followed by death, and death brought, if not repose,  
> at least an insensibility that resembled it.  
>  ** _The Count of Monte Cristo_ , Alexandre Dumas  
> **

In the spring of 1994, John Winchester had been tracking a ghoul through Faribault County. Its kills were frequent and gory: half-eaten corpses of children and adults, male and female. There was no real pattern to its victims, until John had discovered that the ghoul was targeting first-born children with strong ties to their parents. “So he figured you were at risk?” Sam said, still trying to comprehend why their dad would send Dean to a detention facility for six months.

“Geezes, Sam, have you been out of the hunt that long?” Dean said. “Think about it. Hunters are always at risk, especially if the thing they’re after knows it’s being hunted. Dad kept us away more often than not because he didn’t want us to be used against him. I guess he figured he needed to send me somewhere safe.”

“Why not Bobby’s? Or Caleb’s? Why _jail_ , Dean?”

Dean sighed. “Ghouls are shape shifters, Sam. It could have been one of the teachers at our school, or the neighborhood cat, there was no way of being certain. It wasn’t just about getting me away from the thing’s hunting ground, he was making sure it wouldn’t think of going after me, that it would think there was a rift between us. I guess Faribault seemed as good a place as any. I mean there was twenty-four hour surveillance, and trained guards. He was essentially putting me into a fortress.”

“You’re making excuses for him. You always do this!”

Dean shook his head, crossed over to his duffel where he rummaged around before pulling out the familiar leather bound journal and flipping through it, placing it carefully onto the bed so Sam could see the open pages. “He wrote it out, man. I’m not making any of it up.”

Sam scanned through the entry and then looked up at his brother. “When did you read this?”

Dean rubbed his face and shrugged, “After dad died.” He shrugged, rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and shrugged again. “I carried it around for a while, and then it started to come in handy, you know, for hunts. And then I just found it.” Sam looked down at the tiny paragraph of scrunched handwriting; just a brief entry that broke down so clinically and succinctly a decision that Sam knew would change everything. “I don’t know if that makes it better, but at least it was a reason.”

Sam remembered how things were after their dad died, the giddy triumph of finally having killed the thing that had destroyed their family erased as John had staggered and then dropped heavily to the ground. Dean’s broken pleas echoed through Sam’s ears even years later. He wondered how long Dean had been on the road; hunting, alone in a way he never had been, before he had found the page in the book. Wondered if he’d called anyone, if anyone would have really understood.

Sam clenched his fist as it occurred to him why keeping in touch with Aaron and Jesse had been such an important thing for Dean. The only people who would have never required an explanation. He wondered about Grady, had only the vaguest memories of a soft-faced, smiling dark-haired kid who had always had trouble sitting still, and frequently turned ordinary objects into percussive instruments. It was impossible to picture the boy who had taught him how to play the spoons being abused in prison by the men who were supposed to protect him, his mind shied-away from it.

“Dean,” Sam said, felt like the silence was swallowing them up and yet somehow couldn’t bring himself to let the subject drop. “What did they do to you?”

“Sammy…”

“Stop treating me like I’m still a little kid, Dean! I want to know … I _need_ to know. Right now, man, my mind’s running the gamut, I can’t stop thinking about everything they could have done. Just … please.”

“Whatever happened,” Dean said, his voice deeper and choked, like something was trying to get past his lips only Dean was too stubborn to let it. “It happened and it’s done. It’s in the past, and that’s where we’re going to leave it.” It was a tone of voice Sam had heard often from his brother, and at one point he had believed it blindly. Now, Sam wondered.

Outside Dean’s window, Sam could see the street lamps and house lights warding off the oncoming dark and found himself wishing that he didn’t have to drive back to his own hotel, didn’t have to do anything but shuck his clothes and crawl under the blankets. Somehow, though, he couldn’t bring himself to ask Dean if he could spend the night. The day had been too long, he’d been running on fear and anger and adrenaline and Sam just felt spent, like someone had scooped out every piece of him and left him hollow.

“They really killed him, didn’t they?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “They shot the bastard cold in that fucking pub.”

It should have been chilling, how casually satisfied Dean sounded, like he only wished he’d been there, but Sam wasn’t chilled, he felt only disappointed that Edward Dowell was dead. Seven bullets didn’t seem like enough.

  
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The door closed behind Sam and Dean felt as if he could finally breathe, as if suddenly there was space to move. He flicked the lock to his room closed and ran his hands over his face, releasing a long slow breath and imagining he could just let all the history his brother had dug up and thrown in his face go.

He was over it. It had happened and it had been horrible and for a while afterward, nothing had been right and he’d wondered if it ever would be again; but then time had passed and he’d kept pushing through it until finally it didn’t feel like there was a noose wrapped around his neck anymore. He’d moved on.

His dad’s journal lay on his bed where Sam had left it, and Dean stared at it, the worn brown leather clashing with the bright bedspread on which it sat. Sam knew. Dean tried to tell himself it didn’t matter, that if he kept the facts vague enough then nothing at all had to change. His brother would just keep on digging, though, and he wouldn’t stop until he’d stirred everything back up and then sorted it into piles to satisfy his OCD, and then sat down and talked about every part of it, like Dean really needed to sit through it all and share and care. He’d pick and pick and pick at Dean, _“How did it feel, Dean?”_ and, _“What did they do to you, Dean?”_ until everything was fresh and raw.

Dean snatched the journal from the bed and hurled it across the room, watched as it knocked the bedside lamp from the nightstand before continuing on its collision course with the wall, its pages curling and folding as it landed, open and upside down, the loose snatches of paper that John had always kept organized and tucked inside falling free.

Bottom line, Jesse and Aaron had put something in motion that Dean had been sketching out for years. Sam knowing, Sam being back in his life when Dean had thought they’d finally parted ways for good, none of that changed anything. He made his decision four years ago to let Sam be, to finally let him build his life the way his brother always wanted it, and the fact that their lives were colliding again didn’t change the fact that he had made the right choice then. So he’d make it again; put the past down good and proper so that this time, when he walked away from Minnesota, there would be no dark shadows lurking.

Dean dragged his battered copy of _The Count of Monte Cristo_ from the bedside drawer, pulled off the elastic band that held the book intact and snatched the folded piece of graph paper from where it had been tucked in the back, glanced quickly at the names and numbers jotted down in black ink. _One down_ , he thought, remembering how Aaron had said it. One down; shot up in a pub for the world to see. It wasn’t at all the way Dean had thought it would go, but there wasn’t anything for it, now. Either way, there were three other names on Dean’s list before he could return the past to where it belonged. He didn’t intend to waste any more time.

  
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His briefcase dropped to the ground with a heavy thump, the shoulder strap slipping down around the floor and threatening to catch Sam’s leg as he concentrated on pulling free of the layers he had donned in order to brave the outdoors. The silence of the room felt absolute after a long day of constant bustle, but the emptiness chafed somehow, in a way that he had become adept at overlooking.

He pulled a bottle of beer from the mini-fridge and wished that there was something stronger to help chase away the mess he had stumbled into. Sam had two guilty clients with no regrets and likely no inclination to live a moral life should they be acquitted, and had never been more determined to win a case for a client in his life. He had four witnesses and the start of what promised to be a vicious headache, and amidst all of it he had a brother, who was also maybe sometimes his lover, who was tied up in everything. It felt somehow like a second chance, but a second chance at what was something Sam hadn’t figured out yet, and wasn’t certain he wanted to. The one thing he was confident of was that he didn’t think he could face himself or his brother again if Jesse and Aaron went down for the murder of Edward Dowell.

  
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O’Malley’s sat in limbo between Uncle Edgar’s Mystery Bookstore and Koscielski’s Guns & Ammo. The shop front was small enough that the name of the pub didn’t fit above it, but Dean always figured that what was important about a pub wasn’t its curb appeal. There was a tacky green-painted sign accented with four leaf clovers that hung, half covered in snow, threatening pedestrians on the sidewalk with icicles, creaking faintly when it was caught by a strong gust of wind. From the street, the place looked closed, but Dean knew better and he crossed the road at a jog, hands tucked into his coat pockets, his collar turned up against the wind and a hat tugged low to cover his ears, wishing that there had been a place to park the Impala that was closer, even though he had found a place just around the corner.

The inside of O’Malley’s was bigger than Dean had anticipated, and considering the area and the people who frequented the place, the overall appearance was a lot more reputable than he was entirely comfortable with: dark mahogany a little worn, bearing the marks of age and undoubted drunken abuse but still polished enough to draw attention away from the cheap tile floor. There was brown brick exposed along the walls like someone designed it that way, and flat screen televisions at either side of the bar, which looked like it was plucked straight from the prohibition era and, as far as Dean knew, might well have been. The front room was dominated by the bar, with small tables and stools for people who appreciated the pretense of privacy, but around the corner were large mahogany booths and big tables that Dean could just make out from his position at the foot of the narrow stairs that led up to the street entrance.

Dean wondered where Dowell had been sitting that night, his gaze drawn into the further room. “Winchester,” a sharp voice called his attention to a man sitting at the far edge of the bar. He jerked his head in a ‘come here’ gesture when he saw Dean was looking, and wiggled a beer bottle as added incentive.

“Do I know you?” Dean asked as he stopped beside the other man.

“Clay.” He tipped his beer back and finished it off, setting the empty bottle down with a clank. Dean eyed him critically as he waved at the bartender, gesturing for two more beers. “Clay Miller.”

Resigned, Dean settled onto a bar stool beside Clay and folded his arms on the counter-top, accepting the beer when it came with a strange sort of relief. “Well, it’s just lovely to meet you, Clay,” Dean said, sarcasm smoothing his tone out and giving it a bite. “How’d you get my number and why’d you call me.” _More importantly_ , Dean thought, _why choose this of all places to meet_?

“Got your number from my boy, a friend of yours.” Clay’s eyebrow crooked upward and then, as if on afterthought, he shrugged the button up he was wearing over a gray T-shirt off one shoulder, exposing the upper portion of his left arm where a dark-inked tattoo stood out on milk chocolate skin, the design just familiar enough for Dean to relax. “Aaron and I did some time together, that’s how I ended up running with the Dogs.”

Dean smirked and shook his head. “That almost has a sort of poetry to it.” He took a long drink of his beer and tried to ignore the assessing stare that Clay had focused on him. “So what do you want?”

“I want what you want,” Clay said. “Both our boys walking free and clear away from this mess. Just thought I’d let you know that me and the others, we’re ready to do whatever it takes.”

Dean snorted, “I don’t know what Aaron’s said about me, but I’m not interested.”

Clay’s hand on his forearm stopped him, and he leaned closer a little, dropped his voice low so Dean had to tilt his head some to really hear him. “Now I know you’re not a clean-cut, lily-white citizen, there’s some dirt on your hands.”

“I might be a thief,” Dean acknowledged, “and a bit of a con man, but there’s a line and I’m not crossing it. Especially if whatever you’re talking here involves hurting innocent people.” He glanced around and noticed that they hadn’t really garnered any attention from anyone. Even the bartender was down at the other end of the bar, focused on cleaning up some glasses. It occurred to him that when Jesse spoke about the odds of Dowell picking O’Malley’s of all places to stop for dinner, he had meant it honestly. As far as Jesse and Aaron were concerned, they had been sharing a drink at their regular bar, a place where most people knew to keep themselves to themselves. The bartender wasn’t among the witnesses, though he had to have been present.

He considered what Aaron might have shared with his gang about Dean and it made him feel a little reckless because he was pretty sure, like ninety-seven percent sure, that the first thing his friend would have specified was not to hurt Dean and the next would have been to not drag him into shit.

Ninety-seven percent sure was sure enough as far as Dean was concerned, and he’d handle the rest when he got there, so he turned a hard glare on Clay and said, “You want to let go of my arm?”

Clay smirked and pulled his hand away. “You got it wrong, y’know. We’re not just mindless thugs.”

“Yeah, you’re all upstanding, shiny citizens. I got it, but if that’s all…”

“Sit down and finish your beer, hot shot,” Clay said. “Now, I get that Jesse and Aaron have gone and got themselves some smooth-talking lawyer…” he cut off when Dean snorted, but continued when Dean had no further comment. “I also get that whatever you’ve got going, you aren’t exactly in our world, if you get me.” Dean nodded and fiddled with his beer bottle, wondering if he should finish it off and call for another, or just wait. “What you should get is that maybe there’s some things that me and the rest of the boys can help with, that maybe you and that lawyer might not manage. I’m not saying we want to make a mess, you get me? I’m saying that there’s things we can do, and we’ve got connections, so I’m just putting it out there. Just in case there’s something.”

Dean ended up finishing the rest of his beer. He flagged down another and mulled the offer over as he waited for the bartender to return. The old, round-bellied man, graying with the threat of baldness thinning out his hair pulled the bottle from the little fridge and flicked the cap off before bringing it over. Clay’s offer was tempting, Dean couldn’t help thinking of his own resolution from earlier that day, and then he thought beyond that, to the trial Sam was undoubtedly preparing for that seemed, however much Dean wanted to fight it, fairly open-and-shut. “No messes?” Dean double-checked, not wanting to send out a bunch of violent criminals on a mission and get someone hurt or killed.

“We’ll play it straight,” Clay affirmed, and then grinned, his lips pulling back to display a row of white teeth. “Well,” he said, and shrugged, the gesture bizarrely bashful for someone Dean knew was a violent and likely remorseless criminal.

“This is your bar, yeah?”

“It’s not like we own it,” Clay said. “It’s in our neck of the woods, though, and, well,” he jerked his head at the interior, the people spread out, nursing their drinks around the place, focused on their own conversations. “It’s quiet.”

Dean set his beer bottle down and stared at his hands, splayed on the dark wood of the bar top. Sam would kill him if he ever found out, but Dean was beyond caring about that. Sam had chosen his life and he could get as pissed as he wanted, but at the moment Sam’s world was stepping on the toes of Dean’s and that was something they both would just have to accept.

Dean shifted on the barstool, leaned forward more and turned to really look at Clay. The man’s gaze was strikingly sharp and intense, and Dean could tell he was used to intimidating people without having to put much thought or effort into it, there was a bitter twist at the corner of Clay’s mouth, hiding there, and that was something Dean was familiar with, had seen enough hunter’s with that same twist to their expressions, even when they were laughing, like they did everything with a certain amount of dark irony. Dean wondered if Clay had his own Faribault lurking somewhere in the ridges of his past.

“There’s enough stacked against them, I’m not sure what you can do,” Dean admitted.

“Not much, I grant you,” Clay said. “Especially since we’re playing this one clean-cut and all. Put something out there.”

Dean had spoken with Sam about the case, not about what his brother planned to argue or what would be likely to happen though Dean felt sure that Sam had a pretty good idea about it already. As far as Dean could figure, though, the biggest thing stacked against his friends was, “The witnesses.”

Clay nodded to himself and then said, “We can do that.”

“Just like that,” Dean said, doubtful at how easy the other man made it sound.

Clay shrugged. “We’ll make ‘em an offer they can’t refuse.”

Dean snorted, and then tilted his beer toward Clay and said, “Without….”

But Clay cut him off. “Relax, we won’t harm a hair on anyone’s head. Anything else and you let me know,” he slipped a matchbook across the table, a four-leaf clover on one side, and the name of the pub on the other. Dean flicked it open to see a phone number written in blue ink. He flipped it closed and nodded.

  
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Technically speaking, Sam didn’t have to stop by and visit Jesse and Aaron as frequently as he did. Some of the visits were business related, but as far as Sam could tell, there was no reason why either man would have to take the stand in their own defense, and he didn’t intend to put them up there, so it wasn’t as if he had to prepare them as witnesses. Nor was it necessary to keep them abreast of the details, because neither seemed overly concerned with his research, or the strategy he had worked up. They were both perfectly happy to sit back and let him do what he did and Sam hadn’t decided whether that was an indication of their trust in him or not.

Sam visited once a day, though, because they weren’t just clients they were friends. Or had been, at least, and that counted for something. If Sam were entirely honest, he visited them because he couldn’t quite make himself go out to Snelling and see Dean. It was mostly cowardice, but there was too much that Sam was trying to work out and his brother had way of making everything seem a lot simpler than they had any right to be.

Mostly, his visits were fairly short: he checked in, they chatted some, sometimes he had something to run by them or to drop off. Sam was usually optimistic, but he knew the court case looked, for all intents and purposes, as if it were a simple open-shut matter, and not in their favor, either. At best, it was a crap-shoot. No matter how much it felt like he had riding on the verdict, he couldn’t make himself feel confident about any aspect, and he wondered if maybe Aaron and Jesse knew the odds. If they did, they hadn’t made any effort to set his mind at ease about it. Instead, they talked like they had absolute faith in Sam, and it made him feel like they had been spending too much time with Dean, had picked up his stupid confidence in the ‘genius little brother’ and were just kicking back and laying it all on him. Which was ridiculous, because it was his job, and it was also a hell of a lot easier to have clients who were more or less happy to let him work as he saw fit and not poke and prod at things they really didn’t know anything about. It was possible he was maybe more than slightly emotionally involved.

“You are my hero, man,” Jesse insisted as he gobbled up the chocolate bar in a single bite. Sam glanced at Aaron and they shared an eye roll. “I moved out here,” he continued, answering Sam’s question as he licked the melted chocolate off his fingers, “because Blue Earth felt claustrophobic, you know? Or,” he paused, squinting a little at Sam, “Maybe you don’t. People knew me, either way, and it felt like maybe I just wanted to start over.”

Jesse had explained some about his home life, how his mother had died when he was a kid and his dad was drunk most of the time and violent for pretty much all of it. Jesse had gotten into a lot of trouble back then, started early because it was one of the few things he’d discovered he was good at, or at least, one of the few things anyone had ever taken the time to tell him he had a talent for. It was a matter of a misunderstood, misdirected kid looking for some place to fit in and finding a role model in the wrong man, and so Jesse had started boosting cars when he wasn’t studying for algebra tests. Sam wondered if it was maybe why Dean had taken his friends along when John had called him out, asked him to drive out as quick as he could knowing Dean had no car readily available. He sure as hell knew it was why his brother had such a stiff sentence dropped on him for his first criminal offense. Faribault was cracking down on car theft, and since Dean and Grady had clearly fallen in with the wrong crowd the judge hadn’t cared to distinguish between them.

Aaron, for his part, had been happy to shadow his best friend wherever he went, which included out on boosts and also, right into trouble and also, over to Minneapolis. “After a while,” he had said, “when you get through something like Faribault, you don’t want to come back to teachers and parents who think they know you when they really don’t.” Sam wondered if that was maybe why Dean had lasted three months before he had taken off on his own, leaving Sam with their father, waving it off like he’d just grown too old not to be on his own. Sam had been twelve; Dean had only been sixteen.

“Hey,” Sam said, “whatever happened to Grady?” He could barely remember Grady from back then. As far as Sam had been concerned, Dean had been his hero and his role model and Jesse had been a loud-mouthed mischief-maker, always keen to get up to something outrageous. Aaron played Sam at chess more than once, taught him some tricks with lock picks that John himself hadn’t known, and had a sarcastic, biting wit that had made Sam gleeful to listen to. Grady had mostly drifted in the background: not as clever as Aaron, not as troublesome as Jesse, but Grady had always been smiling or laughing. He was funny, Sam remembered, and in love with music.

Jesse and Aaron shared a look that Sam was growing uncomfortably familiar with, like they were deciding what to tell him. “Dean didn’t mention him?”

Sam huffed. “My brother never mentioned any of you once he left Blue Earth.”

“Grady died,” Jesse said.

“Grady fucking killed himself,” Aaron corrected. “He washed a handful of Zoloft down with a bottle of whiskey, and he knew what he was doing.” Jesse looked like he wanted to argue, but the bitter edge of Aaron’s voice indicated that, as far as he was concerned, it wasn’t up for debate.

“When?” Sam asked, tried to imagine the soft-smiling, quiet dark-haired boy that he remembered doing what Aaron had described. The thought hurt, maybe more than it should have, but he knew that whatever Grady had done had more than a little to do with what had happened to him, to all of them, and it was just another indication of the severity at Faribault.

“Sometime in August,” Aaron said, sounding clinical and detached. Sam wondered if it was because he had stopped caring, or because he cared too much. “2007.”

Sam found his breath catching and he choked a little. “Uh,” he said. “That’s…” but couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t think of anything to say, his head too busy turning over the date, more pieces coming together to make a pretty harsh picture that Sam was having trouble looking at. “It’s too bad,” he finished, entirely inadequately. “It’s horrible,” he corrected, and then, “I’m sorry.”

  
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Sam was more than a little tired of getting blind-sided by details about his brother’s history that Dean had never seen fit to impart, and regardless of whether he knew why Dean kept so much in the dark or not, he was sick of letting it continue. He flipped his phone open and selected Dean’s name from the caller list, a number he hadn’t used in ages but managed to keep regardless of how many times he’d gotten drunk enough and angry enough to consider deleting for good. Not that he hadn’t had it memorized since he’d been a kid, the gesture would have been symbolic at best. “Hey,” he said, sounding as casual as he could when Dean answered the phone. “You at the motel?” Dean’s answer was slightly reticent but Sam brushed passed that, “Great, I’m stopping by; don’t go anywhere.”

Dean answered the door three minutes later, his expression a combination of resigned amusement. “What, did you call from the parking lot?” he said as he closed the door behind Sam.

“So, hey, I was thinking about when we were kids,” Sam said, still trying to sound casual and more than a little irritated that his voice came out thick and false and maybe a little more throaty than usual. “In Blue Earth,” he clarified. “I remember Jesse and Aaron really well, but whatever happened to Grady?”

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose and then raised dull eyes. “Stop it, Sam.”

“What?” He really didn’t sound as innocent as he’d been hoping, maybe he’d gotten out of practice; not that he’d ever been able to use it successfully against Dean. His brother could always tell when Sam was laying out bullshit, though most times, Dean would go right ahead and give into it, even after calling Sam out on it.

“Stop coming over here and asking questions like you don’t already have the answers.” It was gratifying to hear the volume of Dean’s voice rise, his brother was moving passed resigned and into more familiar grounds. He was getting angry, and Sam sensed a fight growing between them, and it was like exercising a muscle he hadn’t used in a while, the first few minutes filled with adrenaline and excitement to be moving again after so many years of disuse.

“He committed suicide sometime in August,” Sam said. “In 2007.” He rolled his shoulders back and tilted his head before he asked, “So how much of that had to do with why you left?”

“It had nothing to do with it.”

“Bull shit,” Sam said, separating the words and biting them out. _Let’s do this_ , he thought, and then, slightly panicked, _We’re doing this_. “Dad had just died and then Grady died, and you started thinking about it all again, didn’t you? You couldn’t push it away like you’ve been doing, probably since it happened! Am I right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “And I was there, and you couldn’t keep it together and you knew that it was either tell me the truth about all of it, or push me away and you took the coward’s way out!”

“No,” Dean said, pushing into Sam’s space. “Dad was dead and the demon was dead, and you started spouting off a bunch of bullshit about hunting again.”

Sam looked at angry green eyes and when he spoke again his voice was gruff but softer than it had been, “It wasn’t bullshit.”

“That’s exactly what it was!” Dean shouted. “It was you giving up everything you always wanted because of some misplaced attempt to make it up to dad after-the-fact. Like dad would give a shit that you were hunting like he always wanted! That wasn’t your life … that _isn’t_ your life.”

“It was what I wanted,” Sam said, catching his brother’s wrist before Dean could pace away from him. He remembered the argument they had then, both of them knowing the other too well not to know precisely what to say to wound deep. He should have known right then what Dean had been doing, because it was just what Dean always did; but there had been truth at the heart of what his brother had been saying; there was a part of Sam that felt he had to make it up to his dad. Most of him, though, had been too wrapped up in Dean, who had been falling apart, Sam could see it a little clearer every day, and it had scared him. Sam knew that whether Dean could face it or not, there had been truth in what Sam had said as well, Dean had pushed extra hard because he’d needed to be able to walk away, just like he’d needed to walk away when he was sixteen and fresh out of Faribault. His brother hadn’t dealt with what had happened in the detention center; that was clearer than anything.

“Maybe it’s what you thought you wanted,” Dean said. “But I’d heard you talk about school, about becoming a lawyer … about Jess … enough to know that you weren’t walking away from it with only one year left between you and everything you’d been working towards.”

“Jess and I broke up,” Sam said, his jaw clenching. Dean shrugged, like he didn’t care. It pissed Sam off a little more, the anger that had been abating at the sight of Dean’s anguish rising again. “If I wanted it so damned bad, why did I break-up with her when I got back to Stanford?”

“I dunno,” Dean snarled. “I’m not your god-damned shrink! What do you want from me?”

It was Sam’s turn to push into Dean’s space, and the room was small enough that Dean stumbled over the waste paper basket and ended up with his back pressed against the wall as Sam said, “I want you to quit treating me like I’m still a little kid, Dean! I want you to stop making my god-damned decisions for me and acknowledge the fact that I am a fucking adult!”

Dean’s hand flashed up and Sam half expected a punch, but instead Dean grasped the back of his neck and yanked him forward, pressed their mouths into a fierce kiss that went on until Sam started to worry about catching his breath. Dean broke the kiss with a sharp bite of teeth on Sam’s bottom lip, and then they stood, both panting, defiance in the depths of Dean’s eyes and Sam could almost hear his brother saying, ‘Tell me I treat you like a kid now!’

It was too much and it was not enough. There was so much stretching between them, it seemed impossible that they could ever resolve it all and move beyond it. Dean expected Sam to walk away, just like he always did, their well-choreographed dance of push-pull angry revelations always seemed to play out that way, with Dean striking out fast and hard and to the very heart of Sam, revealing something too much to bear. It was there, plain as day, for Sam to read in his brother’s face. That Dean would give-in and let his brother in, but only because he was confident that Sam would never see it through, that he would leave just like he seemed to always do. Just like when Sam had marched out of his high school graduation and right onto a bus and straight to Dean, and within a week had badgered and argued and insisted until finally he had won. Sam had lost his virginity in a run-down, disco-themed motel room to his brother. It hadn’t ended there. Not until August came and Sam stepped out of the Impala and into Stanford, just like he’d always planned.

Sam could declare his commitment to Dean all he wanted, but it certainly hadn’t been evident, he could see that, looking back. Hindsight was 20/20, but he also knew that he had only ever been brave enough to make a move on his brother because he had been so confident in who he was and where he was going. He’d had to fight so hard to get to Stanford that fighting Dean hadn’t been anything, barely a challenge; it had certainly been worthwhile. Dean wasn’t interested in college, though, or in settling down. He wasn’t happy to drift around Palo Alto and fit himself into the life Sam was determined to build. He would drive through often enough, and they would lose themselves in each other, and for the empty space in his life where Sam had made room for thoughts of commitment and romance, there had been Jess. He’d never asked Dean what he’d wanted, though. Sam had assumed his brother would know that he was wanted, that he was missed, but looking at Dean, Sam finally understood that the confident, cocky defense his brother put on was protecting a deeper insecurity that he’d ever anticipated. Dean didn’t know any of those things; he was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

With a growl, Sam yanked Dean’s T-shirt over his head, shoved him back against the wall as he sucked a path down Dean’s neck, his hands working over his brother’s skin until both his hands were tangled in Dean’s hair, tipping his head back as Sam kissed his mouth, his skin. It wasn’t release; it was revelation. His brother’s fingers working the buttons of his shirt free, and then bypassing his exposed chest entirely as they worked his pants open and tugged his cock free. Sam found himself stilling as Dean gripped him, dropped his head to a pale freckled shoulder and just gasping as the rough hand slid down and then up just once.

Dean pushed him backward, one hand to his chest as the other worked his cock, and Sam let himself drop backward onto the bed, his brother kneeling above him. Sam had seen Dean tousled before, seen his hair mussed in all directions and seen him in all states of undress. He still found his breath catching, Dean with his knees pressed into the bed on either side of him, one hand gripping his cock. Dean’s hair was tousled, his lips bitten red; his chest was glowing in the light with a thin sheen of sweat and his eyes were dark and full of promise. There was a bruise that Sam had sucked into his neck; his jeans were unbuttoned, slung low on his hips. It was just a moment to catch their breath, but Sam couldn’t move, couldn’t think anything beyond how beautiful his brother was, how incredible. “Dean,” and maybe that said it all, maybe a part of everything he meant was in his tone, because Dean tipped forward, kissing him, pressing him back into the bed and then drifting lower, tongue laving across his chest.

Sam couldn’t think beyond the idea of _more_ , his hands pressed against his brother’s back, trying to get more of that devilish tongue, and then drifted down, pushed inside his brother’s pants to grip his ass, growled, “Fucking do it.”

Dean’s voice was a husky whisper as he said, “Do what?”

Sam bucked his hips upward as his hands pulled his brother down, trying to press their cocks together. He wanted to push inside him, like coming home; wanted to feel Dean moving beneath him, around him. With his new understanding, however, Sam wasn’t sure he had the right, didn’t know if he hadn’t already made too many demands of his brother, so he said, “Something, anything.”

Dean knelt-up, pushed his jeans off and then slid down the length of Sam’s body, stood at the side of the bed and worked Sam’s pants down his legs as Sam toed off his shoes. He tossed down a foil packet and a tube of lube beside Sam’s arm and then crawled up the length of Sam’s body, dropped his mouth to Sam’s neck and shifted his knees further apart, canted his hips as he said, “go on,” in a husky growl against Sam’s ear.

Sam grabbed a fistful of his brother’s hair and kissed him, every inch of the ferocious love he felt he’d been drowning in for so long, all the frustration and hurt that had been simmering since Dean had walked out, his desperate hunger, he poured it into Dean’s mouth and Dean drank it down, pushed back with his own hunger. Sam worked the cap of the lube off as they kissed, coated his fingers and bit down on Dean’s lip as he pushed two fingers inside, found himself arching off the bed as Dean moaned and angled his hips for more, bringing their cocks together.

It could have gone on forever and Sam would have been happy. The slick slide of his fingers, of their cocks, of their tongues, tied up in one another like they should be. He’d forgotten what it had been like between them. No, not forgotten; he’d convinced himself that it couldn’t ever have been like that. But the proof was there in their moans, in their motions. When Dean sat back, Sam’s fingers still inside him, Sam growled and chased his mouth, quieted as he watched his brother bite a tear into the foil packet, eyes dark with want as he slid the condom down the length of Sam’s cock.

Dean took him in slowly, head tipped back until he was fully seated and Sam lost patience, pulled him forward and into another kiss. “I can’t,” but Sam didn’t know what he couldn’t do, and it didn’t matter, because then Dean was shifting his hips, circling them slowly and grinding down. Sam just couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but grab Dean’s hips and push up, thrust up hard and again, gasping into his brother’s mouth as Dean said, “Yeah,” and “Jesus, Sammy,” and sucked bruises across his chest. He pressed down to meet every thrust, hands braced against Sam’s chest, gripping Sam’s upper arms, knotting through Sam’s hair and pulling him closer, demanding Sam’s mouth against his body.

Swallowed up in the feel of Dean’s skin beneath his fingers, of the taste of him, the smell of him, the feel as he clenched around Sam and rolled his hips, Sam could barely think to move his hand. He gripped Dean’s cock and let his brother thrust forward, back and forth, into his grasping hand, felt the grip of Dean’s body around him as his brother came, the sticky-warmth spilling across Sam’s chest and Sam lost himself in Dean, pushed in hard and stared at his brother’s face lost in bliss, at the bruises Sam’s fingers, Sam’s mouth had pushed into his familiar, freckled skin, his hands in Sam’s hair, the burn of his nails down Sam’s chest. Sam’s vision whited-out as he came.

  
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Everything was a mess, Sam could see that; it was more than clear. The more he tried to work through it and figure things out, the more it seemed to fly out of his control. He wasn’t sure if he could patch things up with Dean, if Dean would let him. His earlier realization only made it harder to overlook the history of hurts between them.

The closer the date of the trial came, the more concerned Sam grew about it. It seemed impossible that he would manage to pull a miracle out of somewhere and win a verdict that wouldn’t send Dean out of his life forever. Maybe it shouldn’t feel like any chance of reconciliation with his brother was tied-up in in the verdict, but it did. Sam wanted to prove that Stanford and all the drama that he had caused with his going there had been worth it. Like Dean wouldn’t understand why the compulsion to break away into that new life had been so strong.

More than that, it felt as if Jesse and Aaron were entrusting themselves to him, like they had put the cards out there, and then dealt him into the game of revenge they were playing and he could somehow redeem the injustice of what they had experienced if only he could get them out of it Scott-free.

It was impossible to pretend it was a court case, with a simple ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’ decision. The weight of it fell heavy on him, and he worried that he would be another in the long line of people who had let Jesse and Aaron and Dean down. The specter of Faribault loomed large over the case, and he had done enough research into trauma to understand that Dean’s practice of avoidance was only delaying the inevitable. Dean needed exactly what he hadn’t gotten when he’d been a kid, he needed justice, and Sam needed to prove that sometimes the law, when it was used the right way, could deliver that justice. He needed to show Dean exactly what had drawn him to his profession; and maybe a part of that had to involve ripping open his brother’s old wounds and making them fresh again, but Sam had to hold on to the hope that they would heal, and maybe then Dean could really move past it all.

Somehow, Sam had to introduce Faribault into that courtroom and put Dowell and the men involved on trial. If he had to be held in contempt of court in order to achieve that, he would.

  
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Growing up, the one thing Jim Murphy had always heard his parents and their friends stating and re-stating time and again was that there was no profession in the world that was without flaw. At the age of five, while other little boys were still entertaining fantasies of being astronauts and firemen, Jim had already determined that he was going to be a priest, and so each time a grown-up claimed that no job was perfect he had always quietly assured himself that he had found one that was. His mother who, though never outright discouraging, had nonetheless been slightly hesitant to wholly encourage her son’s chosen career, had frequently elaborated, _“It’s not that you won’t ever find a job that you absolutely enjoy, but there’s always some aspect of it that keeps it just shy of perfection.”_ She had pictured her son traveling the world as a renowned soloist, performing in operas that he would invite her to see. Between her husband’s outright pride, and Jim’s own determination, she had quickly begun talking about his singing potential in a wistful tone but settled for Jim’s promise that he would never stop singing.

In seminary school, Jim had discovered that there were parts of being a priest that were indeed very difficult, but that it didn’t mean they were not still enjoyable, or at least, rewarding. One year after being fully ordained he had been posted at a little rural church in Japan when he learned that devils indeed took many forms, and some of them inspired legends and myths and fairytales but were no less real. So Jim found himself in a foreign land researching and then setting about ridding the village of a _Shu no Bon_ who had caused several heart attacks in the area. Even then, he embraced the new and entirely unforeseen aspect of his job with excitement and curiosity.

No job, however, was completely perfect, and while Jim loved every aspect of being a priest, he discovered the most significant downside when he returned to North America and took up his place as minister in Blue Earth. In the summer time, the historic white church sat perched atop a slight hill amidst a swell of trees, nestled in the heart of a residential area, overseeing many of its parishioners from its vantage point; the building itself a shepherd keeping watch of its flock. In the winter, surrounded by branches and snow, it blended, serene and elegant. Inside, however, there was no masking its age, and while the church did not frown on its congregation huddling happily inside their winter coats, the priest had a precise dress code.

It was a small thing, a wholly survivable thing, but Jim had never been one to enjoy the cold and there was no denying that, between the drafts and need to keep the heating bill at a certain amount, the church was never entirely comfortable in the cold months. Jim drew the line at his office which, located in the basement of the church, had four thick stone walls and one small, though still remarkably drafty, window. He kept a pair of knitted gloves in the top drawer of his desk and a small heater in the corner beside his chair; two little guilty pleasures but ones he would stand by. The Lord, in all his wisdom, would surely forgive him.

Stepping outside of his office, Jim took a moment to adjust to the nip in the air before climbing the steps to the main body of the church. It was a weekday and early enough that he was not surprised to find he was the only one inside, though he made a slow circuit just the same, as much to stretch his legs as the make certain that he was not neglecting his duties. He ended his circuit by the votive candles, watching the flames bob and twist, his thoughts overtaken with the memory of a small dark-haired boy who had stood in that very spot so may years ago and looked up at him with solemn eyes and asked, _“Why do we light the candles, Father?”_ He held the memory of that earnest face as he lit a candle of his own, and then another beside it, thought of the two boys as they had been, troubled but always searching for the right path. Jim lit the candles for the boys they had been, but he prayed for the men that Aaron and Jesse had become.

The rumble was low, like oncoming thunder filtering through the walls of the church, but it was undeniably familiar, even after so many years. Jim blessed himself and strode briskly to the doors at the back, pulling them open just in time to see Dean Winchester reach the top of the cracked cement steps. “I’d know the sound of that engine anywhere,” he said, when Dean looked slightly startled by his sudden appearance. “It’s good to see you, Dean.” He couldn’t keep the smile from his face as he gripped Dean’s upper arms, holding him still long enough to get a good look at the boy he hadn’t seen in ages.

He was a man, now, Jim corrected himself, and no longer the scrawny teen he remembered. Dean stood tall and broad, a hint of stubble along his jaw and dark smudges beneath his eyes; the tips of Dean’s ears were pink and Jim could see that the man’s knuckles were the same color, chapped from the brisk chill of the wind. There were hints of the boy Jim had known in the familiar march of freckles across a face that had a familiar, if more defined shape, and the wide green eyes and hair that spiked up in that same way it always had done, encouraged by Dean’s restless fingers despite his father’s displeasure with it. Still, Jim could read the shadows in Dean’s eyes and found himself mourning the loss of the wide smile with which Dean had always greeted him, wondered if it had been a single event that had made the man who faced him now so subdued, or if it had taken an unrelenting succession of misfortune.

He noted it all in moments, his attention recalled as Dean ducked his head slightly, hesitant, and said, “Pastor Jim.”

Jim found his smile again and pulled Dean into a hug. “It’s good to see you,” he said, the truth in his words making his statement heavy. “Come in. It’s cold outside.” Not that the inside of the church was that much better, he thought as he pulled the door closed, rubbing his hands together to return circulation to them. He looked up and caught Dean’s lips twisting up.

“Still hate the cold?” Dean said, amusement clear in his expression as in his tone.

Jim dropped his hands back to his side and noted that Dean stood taller than Jim himself by at least three inches. “I was going to offer you a drink to warm up, but now I am having second thoughts.”

His faked indignation was rewarded as the twisting smirk of a smile blossomed to something more relaxed as Dean huffed and shook his head, “That’s okay, I’m a little old for hot chocolate anyway.”

Jim shrugged and began walking back toward his office, “I was thinking more about a glass of scotch, but if you’d prefer…” He opened the door to his office, stopped just shy of rubbing his hands together in appreciation for the warmth that wrapped around him as he stepped inside, and instead headed across the room to pull the scotch from the bottom cupboard.

Pouring two glasses, he handed one over to Dean, and gestured for the other man to take a seat. “How have you been?” he asked, after Dean had taken a sip of the scotch and settled back in his chair. Jim watched as the other man categorized the changes to the office, took in the framed photographs on the shelves with a slight widening of his eyes but nothing more.

“I’ve been hunting,” Dean said, the shrug evident in his tone if not his body language. “I’ve got my car and the open road. I’m still here.” Jim thought about John, four years dead, almost five, and wondered if that was enough time for Dean to reconcile himself with everything his father was, and wasn’t, time enough to heal.

“Well, that’s something.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He watched as Dean took another long drink from his glass before leaning forward in his chair. “I didn’t just come to catch up.”

Even as a boy, Dean had never been one to observe social niceties when there was something he was after. Jim had found it refreshing then, but a part of him wished for a little more time with the man who he had regarded as a son and yet hadn’t seen in so long. Still, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t been expecting, ever since Sam had breezed through, looking pinched and earnest and clearly struggling with something. Now there was a boy who could prevaricate and mislead, Jim wondered what he was like as a lawyer and couldn’t imagine him as being anything short of formidable.

“I didn’t think so,” he said, taking another sip of his scotch as he waited.

The silence stretched as Dean sat, leaning forward and staring into his glass, swirling the amber liquid one way and then the other. Jim waited, the words of one of his mentors echoing in his thoughts, advice he’d given about confession and being patient above all else, _“sometimes people need some time to get themselves in order, before they ask for something they don’t think they deserve.”_

“I need your help,” Dean said.

Jim set his glass on the desk and leaned back in his chair, his fingers interlocking as he asked, “What is it?”

“Jesse and Aaron,” Dean said. He cleared his throat and glanced quickly up before looking back down at his scotch, setting it on the desk as Jim had done, before focusing back on the floor, analyzing the pattern of the rug, no doubt. “They’ve been accused of murder…”

“I know this,” Jim said, softly prompting. “I don’t see how I could help with that.”

Dean looked up at him then. Years ago, a pale, gaunt-faced boy had looked at him with the same pleading, solemn eyes and said, _“No matter what you hear, tell my dad that I’m okay.”_ Jim swallowed down the memory as Dean said, “We need a witness. Someone to testify that they were with Aaron and Jesse on the night of the murder.”

“You’re asking for an alibi,” Jim said. “And you thought a priest would be perfect?”

Dean shook his head. “Not just a priest.”

Jesse had red hair when he was a child. Jim had baptized him, just like he baptized Aaron. Unlike Aaron, however, Jesse had wriggled and generally been uncooperative, and splashed water all over Jim’s vestments. He had seen them every Sunday for morning mass, spoken with them after their Catechism. When Jesse’s mother had died, he’d presided over the funeral, tried to help him grieve and cope with his loss, and in the end, watched with a heavy heart as his efforts met with resounding failure. Then, after years of listening to stories about, “those two bad seeds” who were committing criminal acts in and around Blue Earth, there was Dean, who Jim had always worried was too isolated, with shy, quiet Grady and Jesse and Aaron in tow. Jim still couldn’t help the fond recollection of the day Aaron and Jesse had stopped boosting cars and returned to the church, shuffling and awkward like they thought he might boot them out for daring to show up after everything they’d been up to.

“You once told me,” Dean said, cutting through Jim’s thoughts, “that if I ever needed anything, that I should come and ask you.”

Maybe it was a reasonable request. Maybe someone else would have found themselves in less of a moral quandary, but Jim knew it was a slippery slope, integrity sold for so little sometimes, and he wasn’t sure that, after all he had come through he could throw it away. Before seminary school, Jim had studied at college, had received a degree in philosophy. There were so many levels on which he found himself rebelling against the thought: Kant’s categorical imperative twisted up with the vows he had taken as a priest, his duty and responsibility and his determination not to ever in any way abuse his position. Amongst all of this was the thought of placing his hand on the Bible and vowing to speak only truth, and then uttering only lies. “I don’t think you fully understand what it is you’re asking me to do.”

“I’m asking you to save two of your boys.”

Jim ran a hand over his chin, torn in two different directions, by two different tenets of his faith. “Are they guilty? Did they murder that man?”

“Yes.”

Dean didn’t hesitate in his reply, and he did not avert his gaze. “I know what they have been up to, Dean. I know…” he sighed again, because regardless of what he knew, it was ingrained in him to hold out hope, to never turn away a soul in need. “Why would you ask me this,” Jim wondered. “What about the life that was taken? What is that life worth?”

“To me?” Dean said. “Absolutely nothing.”

The answer was chilling in itself. Jim knew Dean well enough to be certain that he would never ask for Jim to lie without good reason: Dean knew the importance of vows and he also knew how Jim himself valued them. Yet he showed not the slightest hint of remorse over the victim of what Jim understood to be a brutal murder. It was the darkening of familiar green eyes with a depth of pain that caught Jim off guard.

“Why?” he asked, which perhaps should have been his very first question, but he had stopped expecting more from Jesse and of Aaron, was too familiar with the line they’d crossed to hold out much hope that they would ever return. Dean was a different matter; Dean had always seen the world in black and white, good and bad. Jim knew the man hunted and, from what he had heard, was even better than John had been; but demons and ghouls were one thing, people were another. “Tell me why you feel that way.”

Dean looked away, his jaw clenching visibly and Jim sat forward, fought to remain patient and let Dean answer in his own time. “Because of what he did to us,” Dean said, his voice thick, struggling to hold back an avalanche of emotion. “The four of us,” he said. Jim felt a horrible understanding begin to blossom, and he fought it desperately, the truth too horrible to entertain on a whim. “We were just kids.” Dean drew in a shuddering breath and Jim could see that he was shaking with the effort to hold back the emotion surging through him, his eyes wet and, as Jim sat awash in the dawning understanding and horror, a tear slid down Dean’s cheek.

“Faribault?” Jim asked.

He wasn’t prepared for the answer. Wasn’t ready to hear about six months of humiliation, abuse and rape. Of four boys that Jim knew, just fifteen years old, clinging together and counting down the days, the subjects of a broken system. If anyone had known, and they must have, they hadn’t said anything, hadn’t _done_ anything, and there was nothing the boys themselves could have done. Jim wondered if Dean understood that. Understood that he was not responsible for what had happened, wasn’t weak because it had.

Jim kept thinking that he had been there. He’d spent his Saturdays driving out to see them, and he’d never questioned it, not that there had been any real indications. Jim knew places like Faribault, knew to expect some bruises: boys were boys, and troubled boys were troubled boys. He held on to the fact that Dean knew how to fight, more than knew how to take care of himself; they all had. He’d told them each to hold on, talked to them to keep their morale up. When he asked, however, they each individually assured him that everything was fine, dismissed the hurts as petty squabbling between other boys. Jim should have known better.

The press of responsibility and guilt weighed down on him, and he knew that whatever he could do to help Dean, he would do. Still, he could not so easily consider throwing away his vows, couldn’t justify in himself that it was right to do so. It was a matter for the court, and Jim believed that religion had no place in the courtroom.

Jim pulled the decanter of scotch from the cupboard and refilled their glasses, but he could not bring himself to sit down. He finished his drink, and stared at the glass, found himself repeating the Lord’s Prayer over and over in the back of his head. He dropped a hand to Dean’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. “I have a decision to make,” he said.

Dean set his empty glass carefully onto Jim’s desk as he stood up, meeting Jim’s eye he nodded. “You’ll make the right choice,” he said. “Whatever you decide.”


	4. Part Four

  
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>   
> But, with such an outlook ... which makes you judge and executioner  
> in your own case, it would be hard for you to confine yourself  
> to actions that would leave you forever immune to the power of  
> the law. Hatred is blind and anger deaf: the one who pours  
> himself a cup of vengeance is likely to drink a bitter draught.  
>  ** _The Count of Monte Cristo_ , Alexandre Dumas  
> **

There were people already seated in the courtroom when Sam entered, the room just small enough that it felt a bit strange to walk passed them and push aside the little swinging gate that separated the people who had come to observe from those involved in the trial. On the left side of the room, behind the jury, was a regiment of windows with grey-white coverings over each, leaving the area entirely reliant on the pot lights in the ceiling. Oddly, the effect was soothing; it was possibly the most comfortable courtroom Sam had ever seen. Like so much of downtown Minneapolis, the architecture contributed to the sense of order, and the courtroom was composed of straight lines echoing and crossing each other, cherry wood paneling covering the walls blending with the dark maroon of the carpet and the chair coverings. The table where Sam deposited his briefcase was smooth maple and had a desk-pad on it. There wasn’t a great deal of space to move around, and he noted with a hint of amusement that, since he was representing two clients, there were three large maroon chairs pulled up to the defense table, which was clearly meant to comfortably sit only two.

“You better budge over,” Aaron muttered, elbowing Jesse good-naturedly in the side when the guard escorted them to their seats just as Sam was setting out the notes regarding the case.

“If I budge any more my dick’s gonna be bisected by the damn table leg.” They were in freshly pressed suits, and Jesse had tied his hair back in a low ponytail for the occasion, though Sam could see Aaron had spent about as much time as usual on his own hair, which, as far as he could tell, was just about none at all. Sam dragged his chair further over in an effort to get more space and realized that Jesse was right, the table didn’t have legs so much as a plank of maple running straight down. The plank wasn’t even at the far end of the table, which meant that if he tried to get some more space he had to sit with his legs on either side of it. “Well, this is cozy,” Jesse scoffed.

Their table was furthest away from the jury box, with Sam seated at the far left. “Jesse, pull your chair over to the edge of the table, and sit as far forward as you can.” At least that way, Jesse would be visible, and it still looked as if they were sitting in a close row. Sam rolled his chair back into the position he had found it, hoping the jury would see that he had absolutely no qualms sitting closely with his clients. “Now try not to look sullen and listen up for a minute.” Both Jesse and Aaron turned their attention to him.

When Sam had been driving over to the Hennepin County Government Center, there had been a moment where he wondered if his clients would even be there, or if maybe Dean had broken them out in the middle of the night. He’d switched the radio on to the all-news station and wondered what he would do if Jesse and Aaron never appeared. Sitting in the courtroom with the presence of his clients confirmed, Sam’s thoughts had turned to Dean, and he found himself torn between wanting his brother there and wanting him to stay away. The idea of having Dean watching as Sam proceeded with the trial made him impossibly nervous. With a huff Sam recalled a time when knowing Dean was in the audience had been a comforting thought. Dean had never missed a single one of his soccer matches, and Sam could recall his determination to push extra hard in order to make his big brother proud.

Holding on to that sense of determination, Sam set every other distraction aside. “We’ve had a bit of luck,” he said, keeping his voice low as he conferred with Jesse and Aaron. “Two of the witnesses have withdrawn their testimony, which means we’re only facing two witness accounts instead of four.” Jesse bumped Aaron’s shoulder, and Aaron gave a small but devious smirk, and Sam decided he didn’t want to know and wasn’t going to ask. Despite the fact that had been through trials before, he gave an overview of what to expect, if only to distract them.

Just as he was directing them to remain calm and to refrain from looking in any way threatening, which included scowling at anyone, but especially the judge and the jury, Dean entered the courtroom, settling into a seat a few rows behind them. For all the worry Sam had been wrestling with previously at the prospect of having Dean there, he felt a sharp surge of adrenaline at the same time as the tension unknotted inside him.

  
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The first half of the morning was spent with the judge advising the jury as to the court proceedings. After a short recess, Sam flipped to a clear page on his legal pad while Seamus White, the prosecutor, stood from his seat and began his opening statement.

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the court,” White said, as he walked over to the jury box. “I wonder if I could ask you all for a favor. I want each of you to close your eyes. Just for a moment.” White looked at each of the jury members. “Close your eyes and picture yourself coming home from work. It’s late and it was a long day so you don’t feel much like cooking. You find a pub, nothing special, just whatever’s closest, and place your order, settling-in for your dinner in a nice, quiet, respectable establishment. There’s a couple sharing a meal in a booth. Two businessmen are having a drink at the bar.”

White rested his hands on the rail by the jury. “Now I want you to picture two men coming into that pub. Picture them knocking back a couple of drinks and then joining you at your table. You talk. You probably ask them who they are, what they want?” White left that hanging, letting the image coalesce in their imaginations. “Now picture those strangers standing up, and both of them pointing a gun at you.” Beside him, Jesse snorted, and Sam glared at him, happy at least that the jury hadn’t seen or heard him. “Ladies and gentlemen, that is precisely how the victim, Edward Dowell, who was murdered on the night of January 24th. He was having a fish dinner in a pub, on his way back from work.”

White played on the jury’s sympathy, describing bits about Dowell’s day, which hadn’t been at all remarkable, building the man up to be an honest, working citizen who had simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Jesse and Aaron, in White’s retelling, became nothing more than a couple of thugs who had entered O’Malley’s with the intent to kill someone, though not particular as to who. As far as Sam could tell, most of White’s case rested in the witness testimonies, in the line-up where they had picked out Jesse and Aaron, and in his own assessment of what must have happened that night, based, undoubtedly, on stories he’d heard about gangs who performed random killings. By the time White retook his seat, the jury was looking toward Aaron and Jesse with narrow eyes.

“Your Honor, Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury,” Sam cleared his throat as he stood up. “As the prosecutor asked you to imagine the night of the murder, I saw the looks of horror on each of your faces.” He stopped by the railing in front of the jurors as he said, “This is a despicable crime, made all the worse by the fact that it seemingly has no motive. That an honest, hard working person could be targeted by random, meaningless violence; it could have been any one of us that night.” Some of the jurors shifted in their seats. “I want you to know that my clients, Aaron Conyers, and Jesse Deacon, did not commit this senseless murder. They are not guilty. And that brings us to what I want to talk about for a few minutes, and that’s getting blamed for something you didn’t do.”

Sam’s clients were guilty. He knew they had each fired the shots that had killed Edward Dowell. His case was built around the fact that there hadn’t been a whole lot of effort made by the police in locating other suspects. There was no trace of the murder weapons, no motive, and Sam intended to cast doubt on the police line-up, as well as the fact that the police had been talking as if it were the Mad Dogs who perpetrated the crime, before they’d even spoken to any witness directly.

“Each of you have been empowered to determine whether the allegations made against my clients are true. If, after hearing all of the facts of this case, you each have absolutely no doubt in your mind that my clients are guilty, then you have to find them so. But if you have a _reasonable doubt_ , if some part of the prosecution’s case does not hold for you, then you must find Aaron Conyers and Jesse Deacon _not guilty_. I believe that once you have heard all of the evidence you will recognize that this is not a case of random gang violence perpetrated by two thugs. This is a case of two innocent men, Aaron Conyers and Jesse Deacon, being brought before you today because of rushed police work and hasty conclusions drawn on little to no factual basis. And I think that each of you will honor the truth by saying yes, this was a horrible crime, but it hasn’t been solved yet. Thank-you.”

A recess was called for lunch, and Sam turned to his clients as Aaron said, “God damned.”

“It would be brilliant,” Jesse said, “If it weren’t so damned tragic to hear you saying all that.” He grinned a little as he jerked his head towards Aaron. “Are you sure we did what we think we did? I’m starting to have doubts.”

“Shut up, Man,” Aaron said. “We’re in the middle of a courtroom.”

“An empty courtroom,” Jesse pointed out as a guard came forward to escort them out for lunch. “I hope it’s not friggin’ macaroni,” Jesse muttered.

  
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Marie Coulter had dark red, curly hair that she had pulled back with a clip. She wore a navy suit with a knee-length skirt and Sam could tell from the way she shifted on the stand that she had never seen the inside of a courtroom before. Still, she answered White’s questions with a clear voice, and she sat straight-backed and composed as she described the evening of January 24th, where a night out with her boyfriend had been cut abruptly short by gunfire and the murder of one, Edward Dowell.

Under any other circumstances, Sam would have held nothing but sympathy for her. Even growing up as a hunter’s son hadn’t exposed him to the kind of violence she had been privy to on her date, and he wondered if she was still struggling with the events of that night one month later. Still, it wasn’t Sam’s job to sympathize with her; he couldn’t afford any emotion toward her at all. Maybe that was part of the reason why people hated lawyers as much as they all claimed to, but even that was something that Sam couldn’t afford to wonder about too closely. The fact was that Marie Coulter was a witness to a murder that his clients were on trial for, and as their defense attorney, she was an obstacle for Sam to overcome.

“Thank you so much, Ms. Coulter,” Seamus White said, smiling a tight little smile as he turned and retook his seat behind the prosecution’s table. Sam let out a breath and glanced at the notes he had scrawled onto his legal pad before he rose from his chair.

“Good morning,” he greeted, flashing a professional, if slightly charming, smile and ducking his head a little as he walked forward. Marie Coulter’s eyes dropped somewhat bashfully and she answered with a soft greeting. “Ms. Coulter, in your statement you said that you had wine with your dinner, is that correct?”

“Yes it is.”

“Just one bottle of wine?”

She nodded, her slight smile saying that she didn’t quite know where he was going with his questions but that she trusted he’d get to the point. “Yes,” she said. “A bottle of red Chianti.”

“How about earlier in the day?” Sam pushed, “Did you have anything to drink at lunch?”

Her expression was no longer so open, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and frowned, trying to recall the events of that day. “I was out shopping,” she said, “and I stopped over at this little place…”

Sam raised a hand to stop her rambling words and said, “Please, Ms. Coulter, I would just like to hear if you had anything to drink at lunch.”

“A martini, and,” she hesitated, “probably some wine.”

“How many glasses of wine?”

“One,” she said, then licked her lips. “Or maybe it was two.”

“Would you say closer to two?”

“Yes,” she said, her tone indicating she wanted to be done with the line of questioning, was eager to tell him what he wanted in order to simply make him shut up. “Probably two glasses.”

“About what time did you have lunch?”

“Objection!” White rose from his seat. “What happened on the day of the murder has no bearing on what Ms. Coulter saw on the night of the murder.”

“How much she had to drink does, your Honor,” Sam contested.

The judge nodded, “Overruled.”

“Ms. Coulter,” Sam said.

She’d watched the exchange with slightly wide eyes, and shifted in her seat before she said, “About one thirty.”

“What did you have for lunch?”

“Uh,” she huffed. “It was a while ago. Probably a salad.”

“A martini and two glasses of wine,” Sam said. “And a salad. Is that correct?”

“Yeah,” she said, then cleared her throat and said more confidently, “Yes.”

“And then you had wine at dinner, which was about six hours later?”

“Yes.”

Sam nodded before he asked, “How much wine did you have by the time my clients allegedly walked into O’Malley’s?”

“Two glasses.”

He let the statement hang for a moment as he paced forward until he stood closer to the stand, raised his eyebrows a little and looked at her in that way Jess had frequently told him was adorable, and teasing, and wholly unfair. “Would you say that four glasses of wine and a martini within a six hour period is a lot for you to drink?”

Her cheeks flushed a little and she nodded while she said, “It is. Yes.” What else could she say? To deny it would be equally damning, implying she was potentially an alcoholic.

Sam nodded, tried to look considering as he turned and paced away from her. “Ms. Coulter, had you ever heard a gun fired before the night in question?”

The tension that had been building in her tone and posture released at the new line of questioning, and she shook her head. “No; never.”

“Could you describe the sound, please?”

“It was loud,” she said. “Like someone was setting off fireworks inside. Everything shook, I remember the glasses rattled.”

Sam looked at her, his face openly sympathetic as he asked, “The sound frightened you?”

She let out a huff of air and nodded. “Very much so.”

He paced a little closer to the stand, and dipped his head slightly as he looked at her. “Did you close your eyes?” he asked, like he was a friend she could confide in.

“At first,” she admitted. “But when the shooting stopped I opened them again.”

“Did you think the men firing the guns might kill everyone inside the pub that night?”

“I really didn’t know what to think,” she said. “I just knew that someone had been shot.”

“Did you think that you might be next?”

“I did,” her voice choked a little, reacting to the sympathy in his tone.

Sam paced away toward the jury, his voice confident and sure as he said, “Yet despite that fear, despite the fear for your life, you turned and you looked at their faces as they left?”

He had reeled her in so completely that she sat up straighter, shifted a little in pride at his tone. “I did.”

“ _Did_ you look at their faces?” he asked. “Did you really look?”

“I glanced as they walked by, but I did see them!”

Sam paused, “You _glanced_ , you didn’t _look_.”

“But I _saw_ them!”

“You _glanced_ at them, Ms. Coulter, through the eyes of a very frightened woman who maybe had a little too much to drink.”

“Objection, your honor,” White said.

“That’s okay,” Sam said. “I have no further questions.”

“Thank-you, Ms. Coulter,” the judge said. “You may step down.”

  
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“You know,” Seamus White said, jogging to catch up to Sam as they exited the courtroom. “When you turned down my plea bargain I thought you were a bit of a hack.”

Sam’s eyebrows rose and he let out a surprised laugh, “really.”

“A little bit, yeah.” Seamus wasn’t much older than Sam himself, though Sam knew the man was a bit wet-behind-the-ears; he had dark blond hair slicked to stay out of his face and a rueful smile. “After today, I might have a bit more respect for you, though.”

“That’s exceptionally kind of you,” Sam said teasingly. Seamus fell into step beside him and Sam shrugged. “A trial like this becomes a bit of a beauty contest. That’s probably why I am more confident than you were anticipating.”

“How do you mean?”

“Without any convincing evidence, I mean,” Sam explained patiently. “If you had the guns, that would be a different matter,” he shrugged. “The jury has to look closely at what’s in front of them, so it comes down to the lawyers, and the clients. Especially with the motive as sketchy as it is.”

“Gang violence,” Seamus nodded. “Well, both your clients are in a gang.”

“Really?” It was more than a gamble, Sam hoped he’d read the other lawyer well enough to anticipate how he would think, but it was a risk he had to take in order to open up more possibilities in an open-shut case. “See you tomorrow.”

  
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Eric Torres had worked at Faribault Home for Boys in order to finance his way through law school, but had ended up working narcotics in Minneapolis. Dean had added the information he had compiled to the file Sam had left in his motel room, a photograph of a younger Torres on the page Sam had retrieved followed by a more recent image of the man in his police uniform. Clay had been darkly pleased to utilize his contacts in order to make his own contributions to Dean’s growing file, and as a result the folder was substantially thick and Dean was certain it would be enough information to send Torres away for a pretty piece of time, and with the little bonus gift from Clay, the prison doors would slam shut nice and tight.

Dean had called Evangeline Lilley as soon as he had the information, surprised when she had returned the call more or less immediately. Evangeline had been the prettiest piece of law enforcement Dean had ever had the pleasure to run into; she’d also been the fiercest. He had been well on his way up shit creek, but Evangeline, as it turned out, had been neither ignorant nor blind, and one nasty poltergeist later, she had agreed to release him from custody; they’d exchanged contact information. Unfortunately, she hadn’t succumbed to his charm, but she’d come through for him before, and this time was no exception.

Dean trudged through the snow to the old Toyota parked on the deserted side-street, heat spilling out of the car the moment he opened the passenger door and settled into the back seat. “Who the fuck are you, and how to you know Lilley?” the man asked as soon as Dean had pulled the door closed.

“Who I am doesn’t matter; the only thing that concerns you is how I can help you.” Dean grinned.

“Oh yeah?” Evangeline had promised she had the perfect candidate for what Dean was asking, and she’d taken care of arranging the meet for him as well. According to her, Jonathon Lorne was an ambitious agent for Internal Affairs, determined to make Captain before he turned forty. The best way to do that was to turn in a maximum number of dirty cops in a minimum amount of time. Dean thought the guy sounded perfect.

“One thing,” Dean said. “No one knows who fed you the information, clear?”

“How’d you get it?” Lorne asked, glancing in the rearview to try and catch sight of the folder.

“Fell into my lap,” Dean said. “Like it’s about to fall into yours.” He dropped the folder into the man’s lap and sat back, waited as Lorne flipped through it.

“You’ve got everything in here but a fucking confession!”

“I figured I’d leave something for you,” he said with a grin. “I recommend that you beat it out of him.”

“Are these surveillance photos?” Lorne flipped another page. “He’s pulling about five grand a month ripping off pushers, and he’s been doing it for three years?”

“Four,” Dean corrected. “Is it enough for a conviction?”

“That’s out of my hands.” Lorne closed the folder and glanced in the rearview again. “That’s the jury’s call.”

Reaching back into his bag, Dean pulled Clay’s little gift, rapped up nice and careful in a plastic evidence bag, and held it forward for Lorne to take. “Show the jury this.”

Lorne took it, snorting as he held up the bag, “And just what is that, Mr. Ness?”

“Three weeks ago the body of a drug dealer, Feraz Sparks, was found in the back alley of a club in the north of town. Three bullets in his head and nothing in his pockets.”

Lorne quirked an eyebrow. “And?”

“That’s the gun that killed him.” Dean dipped his head a little, gesturing to bag Lorne was inspecting, “and those are the shells.”

Lorne huffed, amusement and surprise blending in the sound. When he spoke again, Dean could plainly hear how pleased the man was. “What’s behind door number three?”

“The prints on the gun belong to Eric Torres.” Lorne was gaping in the front of the car and Dean let out a breath. “If you need anything else, talk to Eva, she knows how to get in touch with me.”

“Hey, Ness,” Lorne called, rolling down his window and smirking when Dean turned to look at him. “You ever consider becoming a cop?”

“What,” Dean said. “And leave the good guys?” he turned back, trudged toward the Impala with Lorne’s buoyant laughter echoing behind him.

  
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Sam wasn’t entirely surprised to be called in to the judge’s chambers, along with White, but he spent the entire walk to the chambers hoping that things were about to play out the way he wanted, and not that he was about to get hit with a curve ball. He’d had more than enough of those.

As it turned out, it was exactly as he had hoped. “This is extremely irregular,” the judge said, peering over his spectacles to focus first on White and then on Sam. “I’m not entirely certain I see the relevance of this.”

“I appreciate that, your honor,” Seamus White said. “I want to put a face to the victim, to prevent him from being just another name in the obituaries.”

The judge glanced at Sam. “Mr. Winchester, do you have any objections?”

Sam tried to tamp down the excited twist of glee he was experiencing in favor of a cool shake of his head. “No, your Honor.”

Which was how, on the third day of the trial, the prosecution called Bryan Sullivan to the stand, and Sam had to struggle not to turn and glance at Dean, who was again seated two rows behind the defense table. It was hard enough to ignore the pencil that Jesse was using to poke his side inconspicuously in an effort to garner his attention. When Sam glared at him, Jesse mouthed ‘what are you doing’, but it wasn’t time to offer an explanation, and it was certainly too late for Jesse to start caring about how Sam was building his defense.

Sullivan was a lanky, dirty-blond man with sunken features and a tired smile. He was married, with one young son; he worked for social services and he taught Sunday school, and for two years when he had been on the waiting list for the county police department, he had worked at Faribault Home for Boys.

“Good morning, Mr. Sullivan,” White said, standing and walking closer to where Sullivan was seated. “I want to thank you very much for coming today. I understand that you have quite a busy schedule, but you and the victim, Edward Dowell, were such good friends that I think your testimony as a character witness would be very valuable.”

“It would be hard to find a better friend than Edward,” Sullivan said, ducking his head.

“Would you say you were his best friend?”

Sullivan shrugged one shoulder as he said, “I was certainly his closest.”

“How long did you know each other?”

“About eighteen years.”

“And how often did you see each other?”

“As much as we could. Weekends, holidays, things like that.”

White paced toward the jury box as he asked, “What kind of man was Edward Dowell?”

“He was a good man,” Sullivan said. “He was too good to be shot dead by a couple of thugs.”

“Objection,” Sam said, rising slightly from his chair, “the statement is one of opinion, not fact.”

“He was asked his opinion,” White said. Sam was overruled. Seamus proceeded to lead Sullivan into a detailed account of Dowell as a kind man with no enemies, who worked hard, always reliable and so on and so forth. Sam had to stop scratching notes when he felt the pen creak in his hand. Beside him, Jesse and Aaron were perfectly and completely still, their expressions entirely blank. Sam hated to picture his brother, sitting by himself somewhere in the seats behind, staring at the face of someone who had used him so horribly. He was more than a little relieved that Dean had been forced to leave behind his weapons in order to enter the courtroom.

When Sullivan’s glowing account of Edward Dowell was finished, Seamus White retook his seat. There was a moment where Sam almost reconsidered his plan, but it was too late to go back. Sam rose, buttoned his suit jacket with one hand as he stepped forward. “Mr. Sullivan,” he said, cleared his throat before he continued, “You and Mr. Dowell worked for two years together at a prison, is that correct?”

“No,” Sullivan corrected. “Faribault was a facility for young boys. But yes, we worked there for two years together.”

“What was your function as a guard while you worked at Faribault?”

“Standard stuff, really,” Sullivan said with a shrug. “Make sure they made it to their classes on time, put them down for the night, make sure they weren’t getting into any trouble, keep them in line.”

“As guards, were you and Mr. Dowell ever permitted to use force to, as you put it, keep the boys in line?”

“What?” he stuttered, his eyes shifted from Sam to White, and even over to the judge before he looked back to Sam and asked, “What do you mean, force?”

Sam’s eyebrows rose slightly and he tipped his head to the side slightly. “For example, were you permitted to hit them?”

“No,” Sullivan said emphatically.

“Were any of the boys, ever hit at any time at Faribault, Mr. Sullivan?”

“I’m sure that something like that might have happened, from time to time. Faribault was a big place.”

“Sure,” Sam said, paced away as he said, “Let’s narrow it down then. Did you and Mr. Dowell ever hit any of the boys in your care?” He let the silence stretch as he pretended to be scanning his notes, before he glanced up again at Sullivan. “Would you like me to repeat the question?”

“No.”

“Could you answer it, and remember that you’re under oath.”

Sullivan licked his lips. “A few of the boys, who we considered to be discipline problems, were hit on occasion.”

“And how exactly were they hit, Mr. Sullivan?”

Again, Sullivan’s eyes darted around before he said, “I don’t understand.”

Sam moved back toward Sullivan, held the man’s gaze as he asked, “A fist? Open hand? Kicked? Maybe a baton?”

“It,” Sullivan stuttered. “It depended on the situation.”

“Who determined that situation?”

Sullivan’s head jerked a bit upward at the question. “The guard on the scene.”

Sam pursed his lips and let out a breath, struggling to keep his mind focused on his questions and the man before him, and not drift into the horror stories Aaron had told him in a clipped, clinical voice, when Sam had approached him with his idea. “That’s a lot of power to have over a young boy. Isn’t it?”

“It was part of the job, sir.”

Sam nodded and paced away, asking, “Was torture a part of the job?” Silence again. Sam glanced back toward Sullivan. “Boys were tortured, weren’t they? Mr. Sullivan?”

Sullivan was wide-eyed and startled by the question. He blinked at Sam as he said, “Define torture.”

Sam nodded. “Sure, let’s define torture.” Aaron’s voice was playing through his head, recounting horror after horror as Sam hurried to scribble notes. When Aaron had sat back he’d said, _“Do you think that’s enough?”_ Sam had asked, _“Is there more?”_ Aaron’s flat expression had been answer enough. “What about cigarette burning?” he asked Sullivan. “Random beatings? Solitary confinement without food or light? Did that ever take place?” He was looking directly into Sullivan’s pale blue eyes and the man blinked slightly wide eyes back at him.

“On occasion.”

“Who tortured them, Mr. Sullivan?”

“The guards.”

“Which guards?”

“I don’t,” Sullivan dropped his eyes down. “… I can’t remember all of them.”

“So remember _one_ ,” Sam said. “Mr. Sullivan? Remember one.” He could see the man’s eyes drift over to Jesse and Aaron, his expression changing slowly. Sam wondered if Sullivan was remembering them, placing the memory of those six months when they had been fifteen over the two men who sat in the courtroom.

“Counselor,” the judge spoke, “is this line of questioning going to lead somewhere that has some bearing on this case?”

“It will, your honor,” Sam assured.

“For your sake, I hope you’re right.”

“Mr. Sullivan,” Sam said, noticed Sullivan was still staring at Aaron and Jesse. “Was there ever any sexual abuse at Faribault Home for Boys?”

He turned back to Sam and nodded. “I heard that there was.”

“I’m not asking what you may have _heard_ , Mr. Sullivan. I’m asking what you saw.”

His eyes drifted back to Jesse and Aaron, and then up and away, like he couldn’t look at them for longer than a moment. “Yes, I saw.”

“Did you and Edward Dowell ever force yourself on any of the boys?” Sam’s jaw clenched and he thought about why he had ever considered this to be a good idea. Where they were sitting, Jesse and Aaron were stony faced and silent; Sam was too afraid to look beyond to where Dean was. He had read that some survivors of sexual trauma considered it necessary to their healing process to have their experience acknowledged, hear it spoken aloud. Sam couldn’t think how that could be so, but as far as he was concerned, Sullivan’s presence was a separate part of the trial that he had orchestrated entirely on his own, for the benefit of the only three men in that room who knew what the motive for Dowell’s murder had been. So he forced himself to rephrase, “Did you and Edward Dowell ever rape any of the boys in your care at Faribault Home?”

“Counselors,” the judge said, waving them over, “Approach.” When Sam and Seamus were standing by the judge, the man frowned, focusing his attention on White. “Counselor, what the hell is going on here?”

White, for his part, looked shell-shocked, and Sam wondered if that was why he hadn’t objected to anything up to that point. He was pale and his eyes were wide, even after he blinked. He stuttered twice before he could say, “I must have called the wrong character witness.”

“I’ve given you wide latitude in calling this character witness and now it has blown up in your face.” Sam tuned out, focusing on Sullivan, the sheen of sweat on his sickly flushed skin, he toyed with the gold cross around his neck like he wasn’t even aware he was moving.

Questioning recommenced and Sam asked about Sullivan’s son, if he or his wife left the little boy alone with Dowell, He pushed until Sullivan was defensive, insisting that it never came up in the same breath as he said there would never be cause. White had woken up, started objecting where he could, and Sam tried to push, carefully and not too quickly, further and further, until Sullivan was answering, half choked and with damp eyes, ‘yes’ into a lull and Sam turned back to face him.

“Yes?” he asked. “Yes what, Mr. Sullivan?”

“Yes,” Sullivan said. “Edward Dowell had experiences with some of the boys.”

There was a moment where Sam just stood there. It had been his intention, but he had never actually believed that it would work. That White would take the bait, that Sullivan would give even an inch on the stand. “Were you there?”

“Yes.”

Sam shifted his weight, but couldn’t bring himself to move in case it shattered whatever moment and Sullivan went silent. “Did you observe these experiences?”

“Yes.”

“Did you more than observe these experiences?”

There were tears in the man’s eyes, he hiccupped as he answered, “I was drinking a lot and I …” he trailed off, a tear escaping from the corner of his eyes and he wiped it away with a closer fist.

“Were there any other guards around during these experiences?”

“Yes.”

“On more than one occasion?”

“…Yeah.”

Sam felt light headed, triumph merging with the repulsion that he felt every time he thought about what he had learned about Faribault. He stood, two fingers resting on the defense table, tried to quell the absolute rage that was roiling inside. “Mr. Sullivan, do you still think Edward Dowell was a good man?”

“He was my friend,” Sullivan said, openly crying.

“A friend who raped and abused boys he was paid to look after,” Sam said. Sullivan dropped Sam’s gaze and Sam turned away. “I have no further questions.” He unbuttoned his suit jacket as he retook his chair, couldn’t bring himself to even glance at Jesse or Aaron, kept focused forward because he thought he might be sick right there in the middle of the courtroom with court still in session.

“I want this to be over,” Sullivan said. His voice echoing in the room as the judge dismissed him from the stand.

“Mr. Sullivan,” the judge said, as the man stepped down, wandered somewhat dazedly toward the exit. “If I were you, I wouldn’t stray too far from home. There will be people who want to talk to you, do you understand?” Sullivan nodded and, with his head down, walked out of the room.

  
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The Hennepin Government Center was a giant monolith of a building, twenty-four floors encased in cream-colored smooth stone. Technically, the building was two separate towers joined by a glass-encased atrium and white steel beams; from the outside it was meant to look like a letter ‘H’ for Hennepin, which Sam had been told by the chipper young man working at the information desk, who had mistaken him for a tourist before Sam had asked for direction to his assigned courtroom. Sam didn’t think of a letter when he looked at the building from outside, but he had an increasing appreciation for the architects in Minneapolis.

He’d bypassed the Skyway on his way out of the courtroom, Sullivan’s testimony causing enough of a stir that they had adjourned for the day. Sam had spent a few moments staring at the door that Jesse and Aaron had been escorted through, listening to the small audience they had garnered chatter and shuffle out before he had dared to turn around. Dean hadn’t been there. Maybe it was cowardly, but he was still reeling, every piece of him in turmoil, and it felt like he was barely drawing in air.

Buttoning his coat as he moved, Sam pushed open the glass doors of the building and stepped outside, the harsh biting wind like a cold slap across the face and he felt himself calming. He closed his eyes for a moment, stopped moving and tried to slow his thoughts, tried to settle away the day where it belonged, and told himself it hadn’t been anything he hadn’t been anticipating. Somehow, though, hearing Sullivan say it aloud, hearing the man admit it, was like a knife twist in Sam’s gut, dark confirmation of something he already knew.

When he opened his eyes again he noticed Dean, his coat collar turned up and a dark scarf wrapped around his neck. He wasn’t wearing gloves, but he had a hat pulled low over his ears and, Sam noted with some surprise, he was smoking a cigarette.

“Since when do you smoke?” he asked as he walked over to his brother.

Dean jerked his eyes over, frowned when Sam pulled the cigarette away and crushed it underfoot. “It’s not a habit,” Dean said as he fumbled through one of the pockets in his bag. “I only do it when some asshole cross examines a sick son-of-a-bitch about some pretty gruesome stuff without so much as a ‘hey, by the way.’”

Sam watched as his brother’s hands fumbled the lighter and then lit another cigarette. He pursed his lips at the nasty habit but letting it slide because, yeah, Dean could probably use some help calming down after what Sam had just put him through. “Are you really pissed at me, or are you riled up because of what Sullivan said, about seeing him again?”

Dean glared. Sam watched as his brother glanced at him from the corner of his eyes but didn’t turn his head. “No,” Dean said. “I’m not just _‘riled up’_ , I’m _pissed_. _What the hell_ , Sam?” And then they were facing off and it was impossible to miss the extent of his brother’s anger, written out in the darkness of his eyes, the tightness of his mouth. “I told you to leave it alone.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Dean. I couldn’t do that.” Dean snorted and turned away. They were standing by a large circular fountain that had been emptied of water for the winter months, in the center of the fountain was a hole, and it made him think of an oubliette. “This trial isn’t about Dowell,” he went on. “It’s not about who shot him.”

“Really?” Dean’s voice was low and gruff; he exhaled a puff of white smoke. “You could have fooled me.”

“You know what I mean,” Sam said. He looked away, felt some of the fight go out of him. “I didn’t get to give the opening statement that I wanted to, because what I would have said was that this was something justice couldn’t touch. If Aaron and Jesse hadn’t done what they did that night, Dowell would never have paid for what he did.”

“So you’re saying going around murdering people is a good thing.” Dean shook his head, laughed a harsh bitter laugh and looked back at Sam as he said, “Jesus, I thought you were supposed to be the good guy.”

“It was self defense,” Sam argued.

“Seventeen years after the fact.”

“Are you saying that the type of stuff Dowell used to do to you is something a person can just grow out of? That a person can stop wanting to hurt young boys, wanting to touch them?”

“Shut up!” Dean snarled. “And stop saying shit you don’t mean.”

“That’s just it, Dean,” Sam said. “Because a part of me means every word of it. A part of me can’t see any other way Dowell could pay for what he did. And I’m terrified that this time, I might not win. That Jesse and Aaron will be found guilty and sent to prison and…”

“What?”

“…and I’m not sure that would be justice.”

“They killed a man, Sammy,” Dean said, after letting out a long breath. He was looking away, out at the empty fountain, at the oubliette in the middle of it. Sam wondered what his brother was really thinking, if Dean was just trying to be the big brother teaching his kid brother right from wrong, or if he really believed what he was saying. “Murder,” Dean continued. “That’s wrong. You know it’s wrong.”

It was Sam’s turn to look away, because he knew if Dean saw his face he would see that Sam wasn’t soothed by the words, wasn’t convinced by them. There was still that dark part inside him that thought, if he’d seen Edward Dowell eating dinner that night, knowing what he knew about who the man was, Sam would have shot him.

“Don’t play games, Sam,” Dean said. “You’re a lawyer. You’re supposed to make sure Aaron and Jesse get a fair trial. You’re looking for justice. A murder happened, you try to make sure Aaron and Jesse get a reasonable sentence. You can’t defend them from something that’s already happened. Don’t get caught up in ancient history.”

Dean stubbed out his cigarette and shifted his bag on his shoulder, taking one last look at Sam before he turned and walked away. Sam watched him go. “It’s not ancient history,” he thought, as he watched his brother move down the street. “It’s happening right now.”

  
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The jury was ordered to disregard Sullivan’s testimony but Sam didn’t care, it hadn’t been about that; he felt like he’d got something back for his brother, for Jesse and Aaron, and even for Grady. Like maybe he’d already earned a little piece of victory. They could tell the jury to make their final decision and not let Sullivan’s words affect them, but no one could un-hear that testimony. It wasn’t just three survivors alone with the truth, there was a whole roomful, and they had a confession straight from one of the men who’d been a part of it all.

Seamus did his best to make his case, despite clearly being shaken by Sullivan’s testimony. He brought in a miniature model of the bar, threw a lot of science and big talk at the jury to distract from the fact that there was no weapon and so solid evidence. Yet when it came right down to it, with two witnesses both putting Jesse and Aaron at the scene, it didn’t matter how Sam tried to discredit the testimonies, the verdict was still anyone’s guess.

When Sam’s cellphone rang that night he was more than a little exhausted, flipping through pages of his notes and trying to think of any possible angle he had left unconsidered, anything else he could pull out for his defense. “Sam?” Pastor Jim answered his greeting.

“Jim? What is it?”

“I’d like to testify.”

Sam frowned; he set his papers aside and thought maybe he was having some bizarre, stress-induced dream. “Thank-you, but I’m not sure that’s really necessary. The trial is concerned with who Jesse and Aaron are right now, not how they might have been when they were younger…”

“You don’t understand,” Jim cut him off. “I’d like to testify, because on the evening of January 24th, Aaron and Jesse were with me at a basketball game.”

Sam was immediately and abruptly awake. He sat there, amidst papers and scrawled notes and felt suddenly and completely spent, and oddly grateful. Sam was an outsider; no matter how much he tried to understand, no matter how pissed he got, the truth was that what his brother and his friends had endured was beyond Sam’s ken. It was an odd thing to realize, but even as Sam fought to restore their faith in the system, to at least have them found innocent, he still wasn’t really part of the club. It was a sudden and tremendous relief to have someone else fighting to pull his brother and Aaron and Jesse back from the precipice it felt like they were about to go over, no matter the personal cost. Sam swallowed passed the choking constriction in his throat and nodded. “Okay.”

  
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Lorne hadn’t wasted time following-up the lead Dean had passed him. Eric Torres was arrested and charged for the shooting death of the drug dealer, and eight counts of corruption and bribery. Sullivan had been taken out of Dean’s hands, and Dean wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with that; maybe that was why he found himself sitting in the middle of the graveyard on Sunday morning, staring at Albert Wilson’s gravestone.

It was over. Dean found it almost impossible to believe, but Dowell was murdered, Sullivan was about to get dragged through the mud for what he’d admitted on the stand, Torres was in prison where Clay had smirked and said it wasn’t likely things would go so smoothly for him, being a cop and all, and Wilson was taken care of, had been shot years ago. He hadn’t even lived to see the start of the new millennium.

It was over, but somehow it didn’t feel that way. He stood at Wilson’s grave and wondered what he should do. Dean wasn’t good in graveyards, and maybe that was partly because most of the time he spent in them involved digging up bodies. To Dean, though, graveyards weren’t where people went to rest; they were where people tended to dispose of bodies. At the heart of it, he didn’t believe in the traditional grieving process, with a funeral and eulogies and a somber burial. As far as Dean was concerned, that didn’t mean anything, didn’t amount to anything. Not for anyone.

Still, he’d been compelled to find Wilson’s grave, if only to convince himself that it was really there. Maybe to dance on it a little. He imagined that if Jesse were there, the man would have been armed with strong alcohol, likely would have ended up peeing on it at some point, and Dean thought he wouldn’t have stopped him. Dean couldn’t imagine Aaron bothering with any part of it. Maybe his friend would have been compelled to pass by it, but Dean thought it was enough for Aaron to simply know the man was dead, just so he could cross him off the list he was undoubtedly keeping. Dean had no idea what Grady would have done, maybe he would have cried or yelled some. Maybe he would have brought flowers. Grady was always talking about resolving the past, accepting it so that they could move passed it. Out of all of them, Grady had been the most sensible, probably the most mature, even if his sense of humor didn’t exemplify that. Grady’s suicide had been a cold-shock, and every day since that day Dean wondered if it had been Grady’s intention to kill himself, or if the medication had played on the darkness they’d all been fighting in some way or another since they’d walked out of Faribault. Either way, it hardly mattered any more.

So Dean spent most of his Sunday out in the cold, staring at a tombstone and lost in memory. He stayed until he didn’t feel like he was drowning in the past anymore, until he couldn’t feel the cold ache in his body, or the desperate clawing wish to get the hell away from Minnesota and all the history it had wrapped up in it. “You’re dead, you son of a bitch,” Dean said to Albert Wilson, to Edward Dowell and to the memory of Faribault.

He turned and headed back to the Impala, pushed his way through the snow that soaked the bottom of his jeans. He remembered being fifteen, sitting in an awkwardly stiff plastic chair as he read aloud, _"Oh, God,"_ he had been leaning over the book as he spoke to a class that was barely listening, _"your vengeance may sometimes be slow in coming, but I think that then it is all the more complete."_ Dean remembered being stopped as he left the classroom, Mr. Pruitt, his English teacher inside Faribault smiling as he said, _“I think you like that book.”_ He had shrugged and dismissed it because it felt like every thing he held dear was being taken away from him bit by bit and he couldn’t stand to add anything else to that growing list of loss. _“You should have your own copy. Here.”_

Dean had read other books before, for school mostly, but they were a good way to pass the time. He’d forgotten all of them. Dean knew the Bible, and he knew Dumas; only one of them he kept in his bedside table.

  
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On Monday, after the prosecution rested, Jim Murphy found himself standing in a courtroom, one hand resting on the surface of the Bible as he swore to speak only the truth, while Jesse and Aaron, and Sam and Dean and an entire courtroom watched. He took his seat and thought that the only reason he didn’t feel nervous was because he had wrestled with his conscience already, and the moment he had walked through the doors he had been nothing but resolved.

Sam was in a sharp grey suit, the white shirt he wore beneath bright and crisp and his blue tie showing just a hint of sheen beneath the glowing pot lights that Jim knew it was silk. Jim found himself trying to recollect if he had ever seen the boy dressed in anything but jeans and grubby sneakers. Beside Sam at the defense table, Jim could see Jesse and Aaron, their heads dipping together as they whispered, no doubt wondering what the hell Jim was doing there; but it was to Dean, seated with other curious observers, that Jim looked. Dean, who had a black hooded jacket unzipped over a plain olive T-shirt, was still wearing a dark scarf around his neck and looked back at Jim with such wide green eyes, so overwhelmed, that suddenly Jim was seeing the child he once knew, lost and hopeful. If he had been harboring any lingering doubts, Jim was certain they would have fled with that look alone.

“Father,” Sam said, smiling a little awkwardly as he stepped away from the table behind which he had been sitting. “Do you recall where you were on the night of January 24 of this year?”

Jim smiled in encouragement and nodded. “Yes I do.”

“Where was that?”

“I was at the basketball game at the Target Center. Timberwolves versus the Rockets.”

“When did the game begin?”

“About seven o’clock.” It felt odd seeing Sam so professional, so detached and composed. Jim felt a surging sense of pride and wished, not for the first time, that John were still alive, if only so he could see what his youngest son had become.

“When did the game end?” Sam asked, recalling Jim’s wandering thoughts.

“Around ten thirty or so.”

“Can you recall who won the game that night?”

A corner of Jim’s mouth twisted up as he said, “Unfortunately, it was the Rockets, though it was pretty close.”

Sam nodded, and Jim watched him cross in front of the judge, wandering closer to where the jury was seated. “Father Murphy, were you at the game alone?”

“No, I went with two of my friends,” Jim said.

“Who were those two friends, Father?”

“Jesse Deacon and Aaron Conyers.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jim saw Aaron and Jesse glance at one another again, but he didn’t dare look over. Sam said, “The two defendants.”

“Yes, the defendants.”

“At 8:26 p.m. The time that police say the victim, Edward Dowell, was murdered, were you still with the two defendants?”

“Yes, I was.”

“And what time did you leave Mr. Deacon and Mr. Conyers?”

“Around ten thirty or so, they dropped me off at the rectory where I was staying that night.”

Standing by the jury, Sam spread his arms open a little as he said, “So, Father, if the two defendants were with you at 8:26 on the night of the murder, then they could not have shot and killed Edward Dowell as the prosecution contends.”

“Not unless he was shot from the blue seats at the Target Center.”

Sam smiled a little and ducked his head. “No, he wasn’t shot from there.”

“Then he was not shot by those boys.”

“Thank you, Father Murphy.” It was a little startling to see the extent of gratitude in Sam’s eyes as he spoke, and it occurred to Jim that Sam likely knew about Faribault, had probably wrangled the truth out of Dean, if not Jesse or Aaron, and had been struggling with it as much as he’d been struggling to prepare his defense. He wondered how the young man was coping, wondered if it had helped Sam make peace with his brother or if it had only added fuel to the fire.

The prosecution took over questioning, and Jim endured the scrambling effort to cast doubt on his testimony, refused to humor implications that he was lying about the game in order to protect ‘his flock’. He couldn’t let himself dwell on it, concerned that it might make him regret his resolve. He had a moment of sympathy for the prosecutor, so clearly struggling to hold together a case he had likely written-off as a guaranteed win, and that sympathy clashed with a startlingly strong sense of conviction that, no matter the cost, he had made the right decision. Jim glanced across to where Dean was sitting; the man no longer looked shell-shocked, but the gratitude was clear.

“Father Murphy,” the prosecutor was saying, “How do we really know? How do we really know you were at the game that night, with the defendants, as you claim?”

Jim turned back to the man and said, “I am telling you as a witness and as a priest, we were at the game.”

“Yes, as a priest,” White said, jumping on the statement. “And a _priest_ wouldn’t lie, am I right?”

“A priest with ticket stubs wouldn’t need to lie,” Jim said. “And I always keep the stubs.” He produced three ticket stubs from the breast pocket of his jacket, never more pleased with his connections as a hunter and his own foresight. He’d arranged the ticket stubs before he had even phoned Sam, experience telling him that it was better to be cautious and thorough.

He watched as White took the stubs from him and peered at them closely, his mouth open slightly like he couldn’t quite believe it, and then he held them up and shrugged. “No further questions.”

  
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“I wanted to thank you,” Sam said, walking with Jim through the halls as the courtroom emptied for a lunch break. “I don’t know why you would step forward like you did, but … well, thanks.”

Jim came to a halt, stepping to the side in the hall so as not to stall the pedestrian traffic. “I keep thinking of every trip I took to visit them, in Faribault. I should have known something was wrong.”

“You couldn’t have,” Sam said, his voice dropping lower.

“I know those boys,” Jim insisted. “And I know the signs. I should have put the two together, but … maybe I didn’t want to see the truth.” Sam dropped a hand onto Jim’s shoulder, and Jim gave a half-hearted smile, more exhausted than anything. “When your brother stopped by, told me, I was overcome with guilt, with regret. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted so badly to turn back time. I wanted his forgiveness for failing him and the others so completely, but first I think I have to forgive myself. It’s going to be a while.”

“For what it’s worth,” Sam said. “I don’t think Dean blames you. I don’t think any of them do.”

“They’re wrong not to, then. They were children, it was my responsibility to look out for them, just like it was the responsibility of the guards at that place to protect the children in their care, not exploit them.” Jim clenched a fist and looked away.

“Would you like to get some lunch?” Sam asked. “Or, I could drive you some place, if you need?”

“I’ll be alright.” Jim patted Sam’s hand and started to walk away. He walked a few steps before he turned back around. “What happened was horrible, and it was wrong, but it wasn’t your fault, either. You couldn’t be there for your brother if you didn’t know he needed you.”

“He’s my brother,” Sam said with a shrug. “Deep down, I knew.”

“Then at least keep a level head,” Jim advised. “He’ll need that. And Sam, hatred is blind.”

Sam tipped his head to the side, smiled a little as he said, “So is justice.” The corner of Jim’s mouth quirked upward, he nodded.

  
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The verdict came in, a clean ‘not guilty’, stated with a cool confidence by the forewoman. The jury had barely needed the time to deliberate. Sam accepted a hard clap on the shoulder and squeezing handshake from Aaron, but Jesse near killed him with his tight hug. When Sam turned his grin to where Dean had been sitting, there was no sign of him, and Aaron gave him a nudge. “Go on, we’ll catch up later.”

  
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Sam jogged through the building just shy of sprinting, caring little for what anyone else thought as he rushed by. He was barely aware of Seamus calling to him, possibly to congratulate him, Sam didn’t care. He caught up to Dean in the atrium, just shy of the entrance to the Skyway. “Hey!” he called, slowing to a stop beside his brother, who turned around at his call. “You running out on me?”

Dean shook his head. “Naw,” he said, a grin spreading across his face. “Like I could. You’d just follow me, wouldn’t you?”

“Hell yeah,” Sam stated. “We won,” he said, because there was so much they needed to talk about but Sam needed to hold on to that realization for just a moment longer. “I can’t believe it.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Never doubted it.”

Sam would have cried bullshit, but the cheeky little grin on his brother’s face was so refreshing to see that he just shook his head, toed at the ground as he asked, “Are you going to leave now?”

Dean looked away, his gaze drifting to the tall grid of windows and the view they offered, grey skies threatening snow, city hall sitting like a ruling monarch across the street. When he turned back to Sam there was a cautious hesitance to his expression that Sam didn’t think he had ever seen before, but it was quickly overtaken by a cocky grin as Dean reached into the bag he had slung over his shoulder and pulled out a book. “You should have this,” he said, pushing the book toward Sam. Sam looked down at the cover, recognized the copy of _The Count of Monte Cristo_ that he’d never seen his brother without. “You did good, Sam.”

Sam flipped open the front cover. Printed at the top in blue ink and a messy hand was Dean’s name. Beneath, in a flowing black script, was a small note that Sam scanned. Dean, it read, _“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.”_ Beneath the quote was a signature, but Sam didn’t recognize the name. There was another inscription on the other side of the page in Dean’s familiar script, and this one, Sam noted, was directed to him. _“The law is the law,”_ Dean quoted, _“and I am happy to put myself in her hands.”_

Sam smiled and glanced up, noticed that as he had read his brother had begun to walk away. “Dean!” he called, watched as Dean shifted the bag on his shoulder and turned around. “What about my hands?”

Dean grinned, wide and bright, and said, “Those’ll have to do.” A few steps and Sam had bridged the distance between them, pulled his brother close and pressed their lips together. It felt like a new beginning, the old hurts healed between them and something tentative and shivering and new unfurling between them, a second chance. Sam leaned his forehead against Dean’s and smiled.


	5. Part Five

  
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>   
> Often we pass beside happiness without seeing it,  
> without looking at it, or even if we have seen  
> and looked at it, without recognizing it.  
>  ** _The Count of Monte Cristo_ , Alexandre Dumas  
> **

New York City at night glowed bright like a firefly and Sam drove back into it and every part of it felt foreign, like he was arriving for the first time. He told himself it was just because he’d been away for a while; that it didn’t matter what size city you visited in between because New York was a creature unto itself, whose wind-swept busy-living and crash-hard entertainment would always feel a little bit overwhelming. New York did everything in a big way.

Sam’s apartment had white walls and hardwood floors and, standing in the middle of it, his suitcase at his feet and his briefcase still slung over his shoulder, no trace of anything really personal inside. He didn’t feel particularly attached to any of the furniture, though the couch was comfortable and the television was more substantial than what he’d had in his hotel back in Minneapolis.

The thought made his chest hurt a little. He’d gotten together with Jesse and Aaron for dinner to celebrate their victory, and Jim had even turned up for drinks part way through. Sam had spent the entire evening anticipating his brother’s entrance, even when Aaron put a hand on his arm and said, _“He’s not coming. If I know him at all, he’s been on the road for a few hours already.”_ It didn’t matter that Sam knew it was true, that even as he had kissed Dean a part of him had also understood that it was good-bye. He’d been fighting for a chance, nothing more; nothing guaranteed.

The next morning, Sam had packed his things and checked out of the hotel. He’d gotten back on the road, even managed to convince himself at some point that he was going home, that the feeling he’d felt, like a second chance, had been nothing more than a truce forged between them. In the end, they’d each go on doing just what they’d always wanted. “Yeah,” Sam said to himself, his voice echoing back to him as he spoke. “Just what I wanted.”

  
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Sam had put his brother’s book on a cluttered shelf in his living room. He’d set it down on its side, a simple but effective bookend, and pushed it out of his mind, doing his best to forget its existence.

By mid-March he couldn’t pretend that his thoughts weren’t still straying to Dean, that he wasn’t wondering how his brother was doing, if he was managing okay, if maybe he’d gotten injured on a hunt somewhere and wasn’t sure if he should phone.

Sam considered calling, but he knew himself too well; knew that he would try to convince Dean to come to New York, or to meet him somewhere in the middle, some crazy and impossible compromise that would end-up with both of them going out of their minds. Instead of calling, Sam dragged the book down from the shelf and started reading a little bit each day, always starting first with the inscription Dean had made for him on the first page.

As captivating as the story was, Sam couldn’t stop his mind from wandering. He’d imagine his brother reading it, just like he must have done. Sometimes Dean was curled up on scratchy motel blankets; sometimes he was perched on the Impala, reading under the sunlight. Sometimes Sam imagined Dean as the Count himself. The further Sam got in the story, the more he wondered if it had been foolish and naïve to assume that putting Sullivan on the stand would put an end to Jesse and Aaron’s and likely his own brother’s thirst for revenge.

More often than not, Sam spent his free time sprawled on his couch, his feet kicked up on the arm rest and reading about Dantes throwing pottery around in his prison cell and raging about everything to anyone who would listen, or snickering slightly at the notes his brother had made in the margins, some of them Dean’s own musings, some of them reading like notes between him and Grady or Jesse or Aaron. It was a side of Dean that he hadn’t ever really known, and it made him feel homesick almost as often as it made him warm with how alive Dean always sounded; sometimes Sam could imagine he was just in another room.

Round about when Mercedes re-appeared, tired and beaten-low by circumstance, Sam was startled from the story by a piece of graph paper slipping out of the book and onto his chest. It was folded flat and worn like paper got after being frequently handled. Sam figured the only reason he had missed it before was that the book was so battered that, between the rubber band and some of the pages being completely loose, he must simply have dismissed the lump the paper made, tucked away.

He set the book aside as he unfolded the sheet, recognizing his brother’s printing, messy enough that he knew Dean must have been a teenager when he jotted the note. The four names, printed out carefully, made Sam frown. Beside each name was a different date, and the list itself had one black line running diagonally across it. Grabbing up his laptop from where it was tucked beneath the couch, Sam started to search.

Dowell was one thing, he checked just to be certain, but there were numerous articles outlining the case, and the trial and how Jesse and Aaron had been found innocent of the charges. Sam even managed to locate where the man was buried. The date marked down on the paper, though, was the date of the shooting, January 24; it was the first time it occurred to him that Edward Dowell had been murdered on his brother’s birthday.

Sam tried Eric Torres and was surprised by the results. The man’s name was was splashed on several headlines detailing the extent of his corruption as a police officer and heralding an officer named Lorne from Internal Affairs as an asset, well on his way to promotion, after the bust uncovered a chain of dirty cops. Sam hadn’t heard the name Lorne before, but the date of Torres’ arrest corresponded with the date jotted beside his name on the graph paper that Sam had splayed out on the table.

Bryan Sullivan took a bit more searching, if only because it wasn’t front-page news. The man was divorced and had lost custody of his child; he was also under surveillance as Faribault County conducted an inquiry into the allegations against its youth detention facility. The date that was marked on the page, though, was the day Sam had put him up on the stand. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

The last name, Albert Wilson, was one Sam hadn’t pursued on his own. He’d heard it in association with his brother and Faribault, and he knew Wilson was one of the guards who had abused Dean and the others but, like Torres, Sam hadn’t looked into him beyond pulling up his initial file. It took a bit of digging, but then Sam was staring at the computer screen a wash of cold running through him, because Albert Wilson was shot and killed in North Dakota, not anywhere near Jesse and Aaron. Sam wondered, with a pooling sense of dread, whether his brother had stumbled on the man just like Aaron and Jesse had stumbled on Dowell.

  
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Dean hadn’t been expecting the hug, though he likely should have been. Bobby squeezed the life out of him and then clapped him hard on the back and said, “How about some whiskey.” It wasn’t a question, and Dean was all for it.

Dean hadn’t been expecting the hug, though he likely should have been. Bobby near crushed the life out of him and then clapped him hard on the back and said, “How about some whiskey.” It wasn’t a question; Dean’s mouth quirked upward as he followed the man inside.

Singer Salvage was the closest he had come to having a home. He’d lived there for over a year when he’d been sixteen, and it was always the place he came back to, stopping to visit the man who was like a second father to him, to learn more about a creature he was hunting, and also, stopping by sometimes just to kick his feet up and recoup. Bobby didn’t care, encouraged Dean stopping by whenever he wanted, and even had a key made after the second day Dean had spent in the guest room on the second floor: _“Not that you can’t break in anyway, but this way it’s legal,”_ he’d said. It was as close to a ‘you’re always welcome’ as Dean was likely to get, except that time when Bobby’d gotten drunk, and said Dean was like his own son and that he was always welcome; that had been a few months about John had died. Dean remembered drinking enough whiskey that he forgot just about everything the next day, but he didn’t forget Bobby’s saying that.

“Heard about the nest you took care of in Duluth,” Bobby said.

“I figured I was already in Minnesota.”

Bobby nodded his head. “I also heard about the trial. Sam put on quite a show.”

“Not only did he clear them of all charges, he made everyone feel guilty and foolish for even considering them suspects.”

Bobby guffawed, and raised a toast in Sam’s honor. “You staying long?”

“Couple days, if that’s alright,” Dean said. “Car could use some attention after all the hellish weather I had to drive through. Then I figure I’m gonna head south for a bit.”

“Well, finish your drink and grab your bag. If you’re gonna be lounging around my home I’m gonna put you to work.” Dean grinned, tipped back his whiskey as Bobby clapped a hand on his shoulder, squeezed once in that way that said he already knew everything Dean wasn’t saying aloud, and went to the door to call the dogs in for dinner.

  
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Sam wasn’t a hotshot lawyer. He wasn’t attached to a big legal firm and he wasn’t raking in money and living the high life. He had a nice if modest apartment and he was living in New York City. He had steady work and was associated with a reasonably successful law firm, and he had a secretary. Well, she wasn’t just his secretary but Sam thought she liked him best, probably because he’d bring her coffee sometimes from the shop across the street. She’d do favors for him, prioritize his work sometimes, to return the favor, and that was an added bonus. Mostly he just enjoyed her sense of humor, and her brashness.

She dropped a folder on his desk and pursed her lips at him, and then closed his office door firmly. “Want to tell me why I was searching into an old cold case in blue-fuck nowhere?”

Sam dropped his mouth in feigned shock. “Language! Honestly, what happened to manners?”

“Please,” Marilyn scoffed. “I was buzzing my way through finishing school when you were still in nappies. You don’t get to correct my manners, by this point they’re engrained.”

“Must have been some finishing school,” Sam said, ducked as she tried to bat at him. “I’m just looking into something, it doesn’t have to do with any case I’m working on.”

“Well, that’s everything I could find by calling in just about all the favors I could think of.” She dropped three beige colored folders down.

“Thanks, I’ll look it over in a bit.” He turned back to the papers splayed across his desk, and then looked up again when Marilyn still hadn’t left. “Was there something else?”

“Well,” she said, dropping into the chair across from him. “Now that you mention it. I wanted to ask if you were okay.”

Sam frowned. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You seem less focused since you’ve been back. It’s not showing up in your work,” she said, raising her hands. “Not that I’ve heard from On High,” by which she meant the partners of the firm. “Just something I’ve noticed myself. Like you’re here, but not here.”

“I’m okay, I promise.” She smiled a tight, disbelieving smile at him, but she left without probing any further.

Sam sat back and let his eyes fall closed. The more time passed, the more it felt like he’d been fooling himself; that somewhere along the way, law school had become a distraction a placeholder for what he really wanted and Minneapolis had brought that all to the fore. Re-living his last big argument with Dean, Sam remembered what it had felt like, just after losing their dad, to suddenly realize that he didn’t care about graduating, that a piece of paper didn’t hold any meaning to him anymore.

Opening his eyes, Sam dragged the folder Marilyn had brought closer and flipped it open, Wilson’s heavily bearded face staring up at him from a photograph.

  
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Singer Salvage looked the same, even though it had been almost a decade since he had last seen it. There was a large dog splayed across the hood of a rusted pickup, who lolled his head in Sam’s direction as he passed but otherwise made no sound. “Sam?” Bobby asked, pushing aside the screen door to greet Sam on the top step of the house. “It’s been a long time, Kid.”

“I hope it’s okay,” Sam said, as Bobby gave him a hug and then ushered him in. “You said to drop by.”

“Yeah,” Bobby said. “Can I getcha somethin’? Siddown, geez, it’s good to see you.”

“A beer,” Sam said, surprised at his voice turning up at the end like it was a question.

In the summer of ‘95, almost one year after Faribault, Sam had gone to stay at Bobby’s. At that time, Dean had more or less moved in with the man, helping around the yard and fixing cars. When Sam had visited his brother had tried to teach him a thing or two about cars, but Sam was stubbornly useless. He had loved Bobby’s books, though. The man had first editions of some crazy occult texts, and Sam had read through as much as he could, asked question after question on just about everything.

Bobby had been a bit grim that summer. Looking back, Sam figured the man was likely keeping watch on Dean, undoubtedly knew what Dean was struggling with and ignoring in favor of keeping his kid brother happy and amused. Bobby had never been mean or angry or even hinted at rudeness, but by that time Dean had been staying with the man for over four months and they had a kind of secret language that as a kid, Sam misinterpreted as Bobby simply not liking him.

“Yer brother isn’t here,” Bobby said, handing over a cold bottle of beer. “He stopped by in March, stayed for a week or so before he headed off again. I admit, I expected a visit from you a bit sooner.”

Sam scratched the back of his neck and shrugged. “I had some things to figure out.”

“How’d that go for you?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Sam admitted. “I sold my apartment.” Bobby kept his gaze steady and Sam found himself shifting where he sat. “I’m not a lawyer anymore.”

“Is that something you just stop being?”

“About as much as anything, I guess.”

“Sam,” Bobby said, he sighed heavily and shook his head. “I think I get where yer going with this. Truth is, I’m not sure you’re all wrong, either. But if you pick up hunting again, be damned sure it’s because you want to be hunting, and not just because you miss yer brother. No one has been anything but proud of the life you made fer yerself.”

“It’s not what I want to do. It’s not who I want to be anymore,” Sam said. “It’s a fresh start, you know? A second chance, and maybe I’m a bit late realizing it but I don’t think I can let that stop me.”

  
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The cemetery in Lawrence was green, the grass freshly cut, with that vibrant tangy scent that Sam had loved for about as long as he could remember. There wasn’t anything buried under the tombstones of Mary and John Winchester; not their bodies, anyway. Sam remembered Dean explaining that a relative had buried an empty casket for their mother’s funeral, and as for their dad, that had been Sam’s doing, wanting something of their father to be with their mom.

He set a fresh bouquet of flowers down on his mother’s grave and then turned to the matching marble tombstone. “Hey dad,” he said. “I think this talk was a long time coming.” He didn’t quite know where to go from there, and stood awkwardly, silently, just listening to the quiet sounds around him for a while.

“You remember I told you that I wanted to be a lawyer because at the rate we were going, sooner or later, we were gonna need one?” Sam had realized pretty early on that there was the life his dad was living and the life Sam wanted to live, and there wasn’t one jot of similarity between the two. When he was sixteen and his high school guidance counselors, (more than one because by then John was hopping from town to town like he’d forgotten how to sit still), had begun talking about options and planning his future. Sam started looking at his dad in a new light; like hunting was one of the life-choices his guidance councilors could help him plan for, or would have, if they new it was a viable option.

It didn’t seem viable to Sam. There was no way he could look at his father and mistake the man for being happy. When Dean had left, John had just stopped making the effort, like he forgot he had another son who might have appreciated some of his focus, even if it was just to be inducted more formally into the hunting world. Sam kept waiting for his dad to call him over and tell him to pack up because they were going on a hunt. John used to call Dean out on hunts like most dads called their sons for camping trips.

It never happened; Sam was an afterthought. He’d started putting schoolwork first because he wanted his dad to put his foot down and insist that school wasn’t what mattered, but John never did. _“You wanna come?”_ and Sam would glower and say, _“No,”_ and John wouldn’t say anything about the petulant tone of voice; most times he wouldn’t say anything at all, he’d just go.

“The more I worked for it, the more I got into it. I guess a part of me wanted to understand just what it was we’d been taking advantage of for so long, bending to suit us, and setting aside as we needed.” Sam sighed. “I think you never pushed me the way you did Dean because you didn’t trust yourself anymore; not after Blue Earth. I’m not sure that’s true, but it’s what I’m gonna believe. It’s about time I gave you the benefit of the doubt.” Overhead a bird swooped, dipped low and then darted away, back toward the trees. Sam watched it go.

“There’s something else,” Sam said. “I think you knew about Faribault. I think, maybe when Dean left, or maybe even before, that you must have figured it out.” Sam’s fist clenched at his side as he tried to quell the surge of anger at his dad, that the man couldn’t have tracked Dean down and tell his son that what had happened wasn’t his fault; that Dean shouldn’t blame himself or feel ashamed. That John hadn’t ever stopped to get Dean the help that he needed.

“I want you to know that I know what you did. I know about Wilson, and Devil’s Lake and that…” Sam took a slow breath before he continued. “…That I don’t think I’m gonna tell Dean. …But I wanted to thank you. I think as much as you really sucked as a dad and really, you did … but you still loved us, and you were trying to protect us. And I hope…” he broke off again, wiped a hand across his cheek to smear the tears away. “I just hope you know that we loved you too. …That I loved you too, dad. …”

  
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All things considered, Sam really should have expected the gun. “Jesus!”

“Sam?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, eyed his brother closely as the other man quickly tucked the gun in the back of his jeans. “I let myself in, didn’t think you’d mind.”

“By all means,” Dean snorted, closing the door to his motel room and stepping further inside. He eyed Sam as he tossed his keys onto the motel nightstand. “Aren’t you supposed to be in New York?”

“I thought I was.” It was just cryptic enough that Dean’s aloof expression melted into confusion. Sam watched as Dean took off his leather coat and then sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’m an idiot, okay?”

“True.”

Sam rolled his eyes and stood up, happy that Dean’s motel room was larger than the crappy place in Minneapolis had been so that he could pace. “You left, and I figured that it was all I could ask for, you know?”

“No, I don’t know. What are you talking about?”

“I mean, we kissed, and I thought, maybe we could start over, but then you didn’t come to dinner, and Aaron said you’d gone. I figured that after everything, I should be happy we’d managed to at least call a truce, you know?” Dean looked away, and Sam sat down on the bed beside him. “That wasn’t what it was, was it?”

“It was one hell of a month, Sam,” Dean said. “I wasn’t gonna hold you to any decision you made.”

“Yeah, I figured.” At his brother’s quirked eyebrow Sam shrugged. “Well, eventually, I figured. …Still making my decisions for me.”

Dean bobbed his head to the side. “Not so much.”

“What, deciding that I need space to figure things out wasn’t a decision?”

“I was right, wasn’t I?”

“No!” Sam denied. “I wanted you right then. I knew _right then_!”

“It’s May, Sammy. Took you long enough to get your affairs in order.”

Sam grabbed the back of his brother’s head and yanked him forward, pressed their mouths together and delved deep into Dean’s taste. When he broke away to catch his breath, Sam rested his head against Dean’s and said, “I’ve got something for you.” Dean leered entirely predictably and glanced down. “Not that,” Sam said as he stood up. He grabbed his bag from where he had left it by the chair where he’d been sitting.

“Moving in?” Dean teased as he saw the luggage.

“Yup,” Sam said, still focused on rifling through his bag. He returned to his spot beside Dean and handed over a green plastic bag, smiled when Dean looked at him hesitantly. “Go on.” Dean opened the bag and pulled out a dark green hard covered book, frowning as he flipped it around to the front to read the title. “It’s more than a book about revenge, you know?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “I know.”

“Is …” Sam trailed off, paused for a second before he said, “Is it okay?” The edge of Dean’s mouth quirked upward and he set the book aside, pulled Sam over and into a kiss, whispered ‘yeah’ against his brother’s skin.

  
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There was salt along the windows of the motel and in front of the door, and if Sam pushed his hand beneath the pillow he knew he’d find a knife there. A paper bag with grease splotches was shoved in the waste paper basket: remnants of their dinner, and the cheap motel sheets were scratchy against his skin. Sam pressed his nose against the back of his brother’s neck and breathed in, smiled to himself when Dean grumbled to him, his nose wrinkling at the disturbance before the man resettled. “It’s your turn to get coffee,” Dean said, his eyes still closed, voice gravelly with sleep.

Sam smiled and pressed his lips against his brother’s neck. “How can it be my turn, I just got here.”

“I got the coffee yesterday.” Sam inched forward so he could ghost his tongue along the crest of Dean’s ear, heard the other man sigh as he sucked at that spot he had discovered that invariably made his brother’s toes curl and hands fist against the sheets. He sucked a moment longer, and then pulled back and started to slide out of bed. “Wha—“ Dean said. “Where the hell are you going?”

“Coffee?” Sam said. “I mean, you’re right. It’s my turn.”

“Forget the coffee.” Dean grabbed Sam’s wrist and tugged him back onto the blankets.

Sam pressed his hands on either side of Dean’s head, looking down at the sleepy, half-lidded green gaze already hazed with lust. “Are you sure?” he teased. “I don’t mind.”

“Bitch,” Dean grumbled, retaliated by spreading his knees wider, bringing their bodies into line and pressing Sam’s hips down with a hand on the small of his back.

“Hm,” Sam said, reveling in the feel of Dean’s skin against his own. “You’re right. Coffee can wait.” Dean snickered, but the sound quickly broke into a moan as Sam slipped his hand between them, pressed his tongue to Dean’s neck and started to suck.

“Son-of-a-bitch, Sammy,” Dean said. “You’re gonna suck a bruise there.”

“That’s the point,” Sam said. He flattened his tongue against the red mark he’d made and then glanced up with humor in his eyes. “You can wear that scarf you had in Minneapolis. The one you never took off after I stopped by the motel.”

“The one I _couldn’t_ take off,” Dean corrected. “Because some possessive bastard sucked marks up and down my neck.”

“Did you forget your compact?” Sam teased. “No make up to cover it up?”

Dean groaned as Sam pressed his hips forward, took a teasing nip at his brother’s earlobe. “Maybe it’s time for coffee after all.”

“Not yet,” Sam said, throwing one hand in the direction of the nightstand to fumble the drawer open. His fingers skimmed over the surface of a book cover and he leaned up a bit, pushed the Bible aside so he could drag out the lube and a condom before he pushed the drawer closed.

“Naw, caffeine’s the way to go, I’m thinking.”

“I’m gonna change your mind,” Sam said, pushing his brother back down and noted with a dark twist of anger the shadow that crossed Dean’s face. It took a moment for Sam to set his anger aside and focus on Dean, loosening his hold to nothing at all, just a ghost of fingers around his brother’s wrist as he said, “Let me change your mind,” and then he purposely skimmed the fingers of his other hand across his brother’s side, light enough to tickle, and grinned as Dean squawked and batted his arm indignantly. Sam silenced him again with a kiss until Dean was groaning, moving his hips slow and smooth to the rhythm Sam’s body dictated.

“Okay,” Dean said, when they broke for air. “I’m convinced. Show me what else you got.” Sam pushed Dean’s leg up and flipped the cap on the lube; he pressed kisses along his brother’s skin and thought maybe this would be enough to make them both forget everything they needed to forget. He pushed inside his brother’s body, leaning forward to bring their tongues together and figured, even if it wasn’t, so long as they were together, they had everything they needed to remember.

  
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